The Lost Port Landscape of Medieval Bruges Reconstructed in Virtual Reality: From Archaeological Data to Heritage Tourism

This paper presents the results of the ‘Lost Ports of the Zwin’ project (Dutch: Verdwenen Zwinhavens). A decade of interdisciplinary scientific research by Ghent University has produced new insights about the maritime cultural landscape of medieval Bruges, the gateway to one of the most important European cities of the time. However, centuries of embankment, conflict, and large infrastructural works have rendered that landscape unintelligible to the general public. This public archaeology project therefore set out to transfer scientific knowledge into stories and experiences that reconnect both tourists and local residents to the historic importance of their everyday environment. In order to create a sense of place and raise awareness of the environment’s evolution through time, we have built on both analogue and digital methods (AR/VR). The analysis of the data generated by the VR viewers, combined with surveys of user experiences, allows to formulate some best practices for future landscape-archaeological projects. Results also demonstrate that local heritage can be an incentive to boost interest and entrepreneurship in rural areas. In turn, heritage interpretation also feeds back into academic research, revealing blind spots in need of more detailed study and highlighting possible avenues for future study.