Anne Frank House VR

Publisher: Anne Frank Stichting / Oculus · Studio: Force Field VR, Vertigo Games · Creator: Anne Frank House (commissariat)

🔗Official site

Anecdote

Designed by the Dutch studio Force Field VR in direct partnership with the Anne Frank Stichting in Amsterdam, Anne Frank House VR was released free of charge in June 2018 for the Oculus Rift and Quest headsets, and later for the Meta Quest 2 and 3. The experience allows users to tour the Achterhuis in its entirety — the secret annex at 263 Prinsengracht where Anne Frank, her family, and four other refugees hid from 6 July 1942 to 4 August 1944. Director Jeroen van Mastrigt and his team scanned every centimetre of the actual building using high-resolution photogrammetry, then reconstructed the missing furniture, books, and objects from the descriptions in the Diary and from photographs taken after the war. The virtual visitor moves freely through the eight tiny rooms, listens to selected passages from the Diary read by actress Helena Bonham Carter in the English version, examines the magazine cuttings Anne stuck to the wall of her room, and looks out through the window of the attic where she liked to take refuge. The experience lasts approximately thirty minutes and was conceived as a complement to the physical museum visit, which no longer displays the original furnishings in accordance with the wishes of Anne's father, Otto Frank. The understated soundtrack blends ambient sounds of Amsterdam — church bells, cars, conversations in Dutch — with deliberate silences. The project, downloaded more than eight hundred thousand times in its early years, has become a teaching tool recommended by UNESCO and the Anti-Defamation League. It demonstrates the unique power of virtual reality to transmit spatial memory across geographical boundaries. It stands as a founding work of commemorative VR.

Popularity & reception

Awards — Webby Awards – Best VR Documentary (2019) · UNESCO – recommended educational tool · Lovie Awards (Europe) – Best VR Experience nominated (2019)

🇳🇱 Netherlands🇩🇪 Germany