Subject: Email list for the LhasaVR project

Description: Lhasa is the most important city in the vast Tibetan plateau from religious, economic, and political perspectives, as well as a key city in Asia, from its historical roots in the seventh century to the present. It is the location of what were two of Asia’s largest monasteries (Sera and Drepung), three UNESCO World Heritage sites (the Potala Palace, the Norbulingka Palace, and the Jokhang Temple), and, until 1959, the seat of the Dalai Lama’s government’s political power. The Virtual Lhasa project focuses on a key time in the city’s history and employs digital technologies to explore changes that impacted the built and natural environments during this time, as well as human pathways that enabled inhabitants and pilgrims alike to encounter those environments. Between 1642 and 1705, the largest inhabited building the world had known (the Potala) was created as part of a mammoth revisioning of the city of Lhasa and Tibetan Buddhism itself. Visitors to that newly constructed Lhasa would find themselves before the Potala, an unprecedented architectural presence emotionally charged by the most potent symbols and stories of Buddhism. With virtual technology, we are reconstructing the valley as it was before and after the Potala’s creation, a process that allows viewers to more directly encounter and understand the impacts it had on the physical, emotional, and conceptual environments.