A project of ChipMates gemeinnützige GmbH

Museum of Ages

a digital museum

The past rebuilt in 3D

Open today: Leonardo da Vinci’s last house, Clos Lucé in Amboise.

Visit museumofages.org What this museum is

Made by ChipMates, a small nonprofit in Freiburg im Breisgau. No ticket, no account, no ads.

A room with a beamed ceiling, red floor tiles and lattice windows. Afternoon sun falls across a long trestle table with two small models on it. A mechanical lion stands by the wall on the left. A still from the museum’s film. The room is a reconstruction built in code. — The great hall of Clos Lucé Reconstruction a room of Leonardo da Vinci’s last house, rebuilt in code. A still from Museum of Ages.

In the museum today

Leonardo da Vinci’s last house

The wing shows Clos Lucé in Amboise on 10 October 1517: his last house, on one day of his life. The house and his machines are rebuilt in code, after plans, photographs and his own sheets. You walk through it in a film, stop by stop.

Three layers: Each stop has a line you read first, a drawer that opens when you want more, and the record, which names the sources.
How sure we are: Each stop carries one of four grades: documented, reconstructed, conjectural or not known.
The words: A person reads, corrects and approves every text before it is published. The drafts are written with AI from a research file that names a source for every fact.
For everyone: English and German, made for the phone and the desktop alike. No ticket, no account.

A tall brick house with stone corners stands on a walled terrace in low sun, under a branch with autumn leaves. A still from the museum’s film. The house is a reconstruction built in code. — Clos Lucé from the garden side Reconstruction Leonardo da Vinci’s last house, built in code after plans and photographs. A still from Museum of Ages.

A model of the aerial screw, split by a line of red chalk. On the left it is drawn in red chalk lines, on the right it is built in wood and linen, in low sun, with its shadow on the wall behind. — The aerial screw Reconstruction after a sheet by Leonardo da Vinci, half in chalk lines, half built in code. Made for Museum of Ages.

The museum’s mission

We reconstruct places from history for anyone who wants to see them.

Visit museumofages.org About the Leonardo da Vinci wing

ChipMates gemeinnützige GmbH

We build places to learn from

We believe the ideas of history’s greatest minds are a living inheritance. They belong to everyone.

We are a small nonprofit in Freiburg im Breisgau. We make Museum of Ages, a digital museum that rebuilds places from the past, and Agora Cosmica, short stories from the lives of thirty remarkable people in history, with open-source code.

Agora Cosmica

Short stories about life

Agora Cosmica retells the lives of thirty people from history, in short first-person stories to listen to or read.

Hear a bit of what we are building

The opening

Frida Kahlo

0:00 / 1:30

Story, chapter one: The Power of Self-Observation

Coyoacán, late 1925. Frida is eighteen, in bed after the trolley crash, and someone has fastened a mirror above her.

Weight. Smell. Ceiling. The world returns one sense at a time.

What you hear

First the plaster, pressing on ribs that ache with each shallow breath. Then camphor, and under it something metallic I have learned is my own blood, dried and fresh at once. Then the ceiling I have memorized like a prayer I don’t believe in, every crack mapped across three months since the trolley made me into this broken thing.

But today there is light where there was none before, a small hard shine. Glass.

A mirror. Someone has fastened a mirror to the underside of my bed’s canopy.

I know at once it was Mamá. She would call this practical, even motherly. Something to look at, my dear, to keep you from going crazy. As if looking at this could be anything but madness.

I close my eyes, but I cannot keep them closed. I have tried for months to sleep through what has become of me. When I open them she is there. The face in the glass.

It takes me long seconds to understand that this stranger is supposed to be me.

Her eyebrows meet in a dark line I almost recognize. But her eyes, my eyes, hold something wild I have never seen before. Something that watches back like a creature deciding whether to flee or to fight. I look like something the trolley left behind.

Which, of course, is exactly what I am.

A story from Agora Cosmica. Told in the first person, read by a synthetic voice.

Hear the whole chapter in Agora Cosmica

Each story is a moment that taught them something about life.

Real lives, freely retold: the facts come from the sources, the scenes are imagined. The code is open source.

More at agoracosmica.org

The thirty, in time

From Laozi to Maya Angelou. Dotted spans are traditional or uncertain dates.

Before 1500, one tick is a hundred years. After 1500, one tick is ten years.

A stone floor with years cut into it in a line, each beside a small round stud. The nearest stud is red. A still from the museum’s film. — His life as a line in the floor Built in code the dates of Leonardo da Vinci’s life, cut into the floor of the museum’s long gallery. A still from Museum of Ages.

Leonardo da Vinci is in both projects: he speaks in Agora Cosmica, and Museum of Ages rebuilds his last house.

We are a doorway, not a destination. An introduction, not a university.

Our mission

We try to open a few doors to the past

Remarkable people throughout history left behind ideas and places that can change lives. Yet dense texts keep most people from their ideas, and many places are far away, closed or gone. We are working to change that.

We do not replace deep study or a visit to the real place. We invite people to take the first step. In Agora Cosmica, our thirty figures include philosophers like Plato, scientists like Einstein, mystics like Hildegard von Bingen, and pioneers like Ada Lovelace. In Museum of Ages, we rebuild what was, one place at a time. We define wisdom broadly, because insight comes from many sources.

Our role

A first introduction or a first walk, not the final word
A spark of curiosity, not a lecture
A reconstruction, never the original
A bridge to books, courses, museums, and deeper study
A complement to formal learning, never a replacement

Breaking down barriers

Geographic

Available worldwide, around the clock.

Background

No prior knowledge needed.

Age

Open to young and old alike.

Economic

Nonprofit. No paywalls, no ads.

We celebrate when people outgrow us, moving from our introductions to primary texts, from our rebuilt rooms to the real places, from curiosity to their own deeper exploration. That is not failure. That is the mission.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

— Laozi

Our values

Gratitude

Every era and tradition has something to teach us.

Curiosity

We learn with you, not about you.

Openness

Nonprofit. Open source. Built for the community, not for profit.

Transformation

What grows within ripples outward.

We are early in this journey and we will make mistakes. When we oversimplify, misrepresent, or miss the mark, write to us at chipmates@chipmates.ai. We are not building for you, but with you.