The digital copies of the Augarten Porcelain Museum provides an overview of the fascinating design and cultural history of the Viennese porcelain manufactory from the 18th to the 21st century. The Augarten Porcelain Museum aims to present the cultural and artistic significance of real porcelain as a once wondrous material discovered through alchemical experiments. The practical and representative properties of this fine material, first developed in Europe in the early 18th century, and its artistic possibilities continue to inspire art and design, as well as everyday life and coffee breaks to this day.

The cultural heritage of Viennese porcelain can be experienced in a variety of ways. Artistic sketches and historical photographs from the museum's archive tell of the elaborate production processes, the concentration in the painting studio, but also of dining culture and the special atmosphere around the kiln of a porcelain manufactory. The collection of historical photographs from the Augarten archive is very extensive and partly compensates for the loss of written archive material.

The selection was made according to the concept of an overview of the various categories, such as employees, manufactory and advertising photography of the 1920s and 1950s, partly from well-known studios of photographers such as Illona Kiss (Atelier ILKA) and Lucca Chmel (1911-1999), who, due to their artistic approach, also convey a piece of photographic history in addition to the depiction of porcelain.

The digital copies also contain photos of designs on paper, some of which are composed as series or individual sheets. On the one hand, unknown designs by well-known personalities such as Josef Hoffmann and Ena Rottenberg were digitised, but also many designs created by artistic employees of the manufactory without surviving names. For the three-dimensional porcelain objects, the aim was also to create a representative overview of the museum and manufactory collection of rare historical examples and contemporary designs, which also display a high degree of individual background and cultural history.

3D models show the surprising sides of exciting objects, far beyond the showcase view in the museum. History is brought to life with audio stories about special porcelains and their patrons and collectors, the voices of employees from porcelain production, but also the historical protagonists of the site in the former imperial Augarten, the oldest baroque park in Vienna. A sound installation creates an extraordinary listening experience, composed from 100 sound recordings from the porcelain manufactory. The sound of the brush as it strokes the glazed surface is just as astonishing as the music of the clinking when porcelain breaks. The sound of porcelain has been used to ‘hear’ its quality for centuries. Headphones allow visitors to the museum to experience a three-dimensional sound field and immerse themselves in the world of porcelain in a special way.

The gleaming white radiance of porcelain has fascinated people since the first imports from China and was one of the reasons for researching the material's recipe in Europe. For the creation of 3D models, this coveted property posed a particular challenge, which the digitisation team mastered with a willingness to experiment. One of the particularly attractive objects in the 3D models is a richly decorated cup and saucer from the Classicism period with its original storage case, which can be opened by the user from the inside to reveal the brightly coloured contents. The Biedermeier era had a penchant for playful porcelain, including ‘eye deceptions’ such as a butter dish in the shape of a loaf of butter with a knife as a lid handle. The 3D model is also an ideal medium for this kind of playfulness.