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Take a virtual tour of Vienna’s Natural History Museum

Fans of Vienna’s Natural History Museum can now take a virtual tour of the museum - courtesy of Google Street View.

Published: 14 September 2016 12:01 CEST

Take a virtual tour of Vienna's Natural History Museum

One of the exhibits at the NHM Vienna. Photo: Google

Ironically, Austria is not part of Google Street View due to the country’s strict data privacy laws, so the tour of the museum’s 39 exhibit halls using the Street View technology is a bit of a novelty.

Plus, you can visit the museum from the comfort of your home, without paying an entrance fee!

It’s part of Google’s Arts & Culture project – and showcases some of the Natural History Museum’s unique objects, such as the 29,500-year-old Venus of Willendorf, the Steller’s sea cow that became extinct over 200 years ago, and enormous dinosaur skeletons.

More recent additions to the museum include a new Digital Planetarium featuring fulldome projection technology that gives visitors the chance to embark on fascinating virtual journeys to the edge of the Milky Way galaxy or Saturn’s rings.

Around 60 scientists work at the Natural History Museum, carrying out research in a wide range of fields related to earth sciences, life sciences and human sciences. It’s one of the largest non-university research centres in Austria.

“We want to show as many people as possible the treasures that exist inside the NHM Vienna, and maybe encourage them to come and visit the museum in person,” the museum’s director Christian Köberl said in a press release. “One hundred stories told will invite thousands more to discover,” he added.

The museum was photographed with a special 360-degree camera – enabling a virtual panoramic view of the 39 exhibit halls.

Virtual tours using the Google Street View technology are also available for Schönbrunn Palace, the State Opera, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Albertina, the National Library and Belvedere Palace.

Take the virtual tour of the NHM here.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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