Southern Romania: Museum project presents 2000 years of spa history at Herculane resort

The virtual museum Herculane Stories was launched on May 30 in the historic Casino building at Băile Herculane, highlighting the past of the resort. The initiative, developed over the past year by the ESCU Association, involved the collection, digitalization, research, and processing of thousands of materials and objects closely related to the spa resort's heritage.

The virtual museum was a significant collaborative effort that brought together cultural operators, institutions, experts, collectors, new media developers and programmers, personalities, and local community members to recover and revitalize the city's tourist and cultural landmarks.

The museum houses an impressive collection of curated articles from multiple sources, now having a permanent digital footprint that tells their story. The central theme is the revival of the city's evolution through time and space, and through the people who have had a connection with the city in one way or another.

"Herculane Stories started from a personal dream and a desire to get involved in the life of the resort, beyond the romanticized experience of a mere tourist. This naturally evolved into a mature project and experiment, leading to the creation of a multimodal online platform that provides a sensation of navigation, cultural reactivation, and mapping of the main historical and community landmarks of Băile Herculane,” said Andreea Dănescu, founder of Herculane Stories and president of the ESCU Association.

“The resort and its people truly deserve a standalone physical museum, but until then, Herculane Stories offers a favorable context for an interactive exploration of the life stories of the locals, whose memories are still active today and whose testimonies can contribute to how we understand, interpret, construct, or deconstruct the cultural identity of this resort in a universal sense. Through our project, the charming and almost poetic story of Băile Herculane is preserved, celebrated, and carried forward into the digital age, inviting exploration and discovery by visitors from all over the world," she added.

The final result is a virtual museum composed of a dynamic mix of real representations of spaces and 3D documented objects and materials, juxtaposed with stories told by the local community, aiming for a documented, highly vivid, and detailed description of local life with its entire universe of activities, intimate histories, and the symbolism of the place.

The museum links 3D models of the geographical area, Villa Elisabeta – an imaginary space hosting the museum, the key historical site of the museum, and various artifacts and multimedia materials ranging from photo archives, personal items, historical digital scans, animations, documents, video and audio recordings, and other formats.