The Amsterdam Time Machine

The Amsterdam Time Machine (ATM) is a research project that is coordinated by CREATE: a research programme and lab of the University of Amsterdam, dedicated to digital humanities. We are developing a digital time machine for the city of Amsterdam: an infrastructure that is navigable through space and time that consists of different sets of socio-cultural historical information. The team, consisting of a project manager, researchers and programmers, connects various sets of historical data to get an image of Amsterdam’s past. We work together with societal partners, like museums and public archives, as well as with local citizen communities. Users will ultimately be able to travel back in time and navigate the city on the levels of neighborhoods, streets and houses, learning how people lived in our city in past centuries. At the moment, we are working on three pilot neighbourhoods: the Jewish quarter, Amsterdam South-East (Bijlmer) and the presently developing area of Amsterdam Port-City, at the west side of town.

ATM is based on a linked and open structure and collaborates closely with other Dutch Time Machines, as a proud member of the Time Machine Organization. This ensures that the Amsterdam data is connected across the Netherlands and abroad. Just as the city itself has always been.