Resurrected kings and queens tell about Denmark’s World Heritage sites
A new prize-winning app provides an opportunity to explore three of the Danish UNESCO World Heritage sites: the legendary Kronborg Castle at Elsinore – immortalized in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Roskilde Cathedral – the first Gothic cathedral to be built of brick, and the Jelling Monuments – the massive carved rune stones from the 10th century, located at the Danish town of Jelling. The app World Heritage Denmark will now be honored with the 2014 World Summit Award mobile (WSA mobile) in the category Tourism and Culture.
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The prize-winning app World Heritage Denmark is developed by the Danish Agency for Culture in order to make the World Heritage sites in Denmark accessible to a broad international audience.
The app can be used at Denmark’s three World Heritage sites – Jelling, Kronborg, and Roskilde Cathedral – or at home on the sofa, where children and adults alike can experience the sites in a 3D map with 360-degree panoramas – in some cases, from angles that are not accessible to the public.
Among the many stories available with the app is that of Christian VII of Denmark. When you hold your iPad over the site where he is buried, he appears on the screen and talks about the dramatic break with his friend and physician Struense, who – it turned out – was having an affair with his wife, Queen Caroline Mathilde. At Jelling, King Harald Bluetooth rises up in full armour and tells about Denmark’s first Christian churches and the German Emperor Otto, who did not care for feasts in Valhalla. At Kronborg Castle, Queen Sofie tells how she was married as a 14-year-old to King Frederik II, even though he was really in love with Anne Hardenberg, the orphaned daughter of a nobleman.
The app was developed by Redia for the Danish Agency for Culture in collaboration with the three World Heritage sites and Theatre Katapult. The app has been financed by the Labour Market Holiday Fund.
The app can be downloaded free of charge at the App Store, but it will also be possible to borrow an iPad, free of charge, at the three sites. Download from app store.
Facts about World Heritage sites
There are 1007 unique sites that have been named World Heritage sites by the UN organisation UNESCO. At the moment, we have five World Heritage sites in Denmark: the Jelling Monuments, Roskilde Cathedral, Kronborg Castle, Stevns Klint and the Wadden Sea. In Greenland, the Ilulissat Icefjord is a World Heritage site.
Facts about World Summit Award
Amid the world’s best mobile application developers World Heritage Denmark will be honoured with the global UN-based World Summit Award mobile (WSA mobile) in February, 1-3 at the WSA mobile Global Congress in Abu Dhabi. Selected from over 480 from over 100 countries, World Heritage Denmark was selected in the Category Tourism and Culture by an international Jury. The World Summit Award Mobile is a global initiative within the framework of, and in cooperation with, the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in collaboration with UNESCO, UNIDO and UN GAID. The WSA-mobile is the only ICT event worldwide, that reaches the mobile community in over 170 countries. Abu Dhabi, as the city of the award’s key partner ADSIC (Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre), is host for all WSA-mobile Awards.
Additional information
regarding the app: Morten Nybo, mny@kulturstyrelsen.dk, tel. +45 33 74 50 45
regarding World Heritage sites: Bolette Lehn Petersen, blp@kulturstyrelsen.dk, tel. +45 33 74 52 44
