Nuremberg’s Old Town in the Digital Realm: TRANSRAZ in the New Leibniz Magazine

Karlsruhe, April 22, 2026 — The new Leibniz Magazine features, among other things, a project that demonstrates how digital methods can make history spatially tangible: TRANSRAZ.

The focus is on the virtual reconstruction of Nuremberg’s Old Town across several time periods. What is now only partially visible is made accessible again in the digital space. The approach combines historical source research with modeling and the algorithmic generation of buildings.

FIZ Karlsruhe played a key role in developing the project and provided the digital infrastructure for it. The article also features Matthias Razum, who explains the approach from a technical perspective. He describes, for example, why such urban simulations cannot function without an appropriate database and why metadata plays a central role when converting historical information into 3D models.

The article, published on April 16, 2026, clearly illustrates what TRANSRAZ is fundamentally about: not just reconstruction, but also the extent to which the past can be modeled at all and where boundaries are deliberately left visible.

This article is a must-read for anyone interested in digital representations of history, information infrastructures, and urban history.

The article is available at https://www.leibniz-magazin.de/alle-artikel/magazindetail/newsdetails/wiederaufbauexe