Responses by Nicolas Rajabaly, chief creative officer and cofounder, and Hélène Ta, producer, makemepulse.

Background: Conceptualized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), this museum was born from a simple but powerful idea: to make absence visible. Each stolen object represents a fragment of cultural memory, a story cut short. Our goal was to bring these objects back into presence, digitally, so that anyone—students, researchers or curious minds around the world—can connect with them, feel their significance and understand the weight of what’s been lost. It’s more than a museum; it’s a platform for empathy, reflection and global awareness.

Design thinking: The museum is built around exploration and storytelling. Its 3-D navigation is fluid and open, inspired by Francis Kéré’s baobab-like architecture. Visitors never feel confined by corridors or walls; they move freely through spaces that feel alive. Each room has a distinct light, color and material identity, reflecting the cultural origin of its objects. The “light wells” in each gallery, for instance, were inspired by Kéré’s architectural use of natural light to create constellations, and we translated that digitally so each space has its own rhythm and mood.

Interactive object pages are at the core of the experience. Visitors can zoom, rotate and examine details of objects, from the delicate facets of a gem in the Ring from Portugal or Brazil to the carved surfaces of a stone altar. Some objects even reveal their own stories through contextual images, archival documents or community testimonies, giving life to artifacts that no longer physically exist.

VR is another defining feature: moving from object to object in a fully immersive 3-D space amplifies the emotional connection. One favorite moment was seeing visitors “handle” the Zoomorphic Crocodile Pendant in VR: it’s tiny, unusual and oddly charming, but being able to explore it up close makes you care about it in a way that images alone could never convey.

Every design choice—from textures, materials and lighting to even the marbled patterns indicating absence—was made to reinforce the museum’s mission: to give presence to what has been lost and let the objects’ stories resonate.

Challenges: Reconstructing stolen objects from incomplete or low-quality documentation was a constant challenge. AI was a powerful ally, but it often “hallucinated” shapes, blurred details or simply couldn’t produce usable models. Some assets required almost fully manual reconstruction. Take the Sculpture of Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, for example: AI wouldn’t even process it because of the nudity restriction. To work around it, we blurred sensitive areas and recolored the baby in fluorescent green to trick the AI, then manually reconstructed the missing parts.

Objects with gems, crystals or diamonds also gave us headaches; AI couldn’t simulate refraction properly, leaving huge black patches in textures. The Ring was tricky, too; its perspective and contrast often confused the model, forcing a lot of trial and error.

Despite the challenges, some objects were a joy to work on. Stone artifacts, for example, worked beautifully with AI, generating precise shapes that needed minimal texture work.

The workflow itself was a product of close collaboration and experimentation. Antoine Ughetto, our head of technology; Grégoire Mielle, our lead developer; Jérôme Levilly, our 3-D art director; and Aurélien Comnos, our talented 3-D artist, spent countless hours iterating between AI-generated models and manual corrections. Each object demanded its own strategy, and we often went back and forth several times to get it right. Some models took as little as two hours and others up to two days—a reflection of both technical difficulty and our commitment to quality.

Technology: We used Blender and Cinema 4D for detailed 3-D modeling and NanoGL, our proprietary WebGL engine, for real-time rendering and smooth navigation. AI generative models helped reconstruct the objects from incomplete references, while custom optimization pipelines ensured a seamless experience across devices. For full immersion, we leveraged WebXR, enabling visitors to explore the museum in VR.

Favorite details: We’re proud of the marriage between technology, artistry and ethics throughout the museum. The marbled texture that marks areas of uncertainty makes absence visible; it’s a small detail with a huge symbolic weight. But we take pride in the moments where our process truly shone. Objects like the Zoomorphic Crocodile Pendant represent not just technical achievement, but the creativity, patience and playfulness of the team.

The AI workflow, while challenging, became a canvas for human skill. Jérôme shaped the models’ fidelity, Aurélien polished textures and proportions, and Grégoire ensured everything ran smoothly in real time. Every choice—how to rebuild a gem, how to trick the AI without compromising ethics, how to keep textures accurate on low-quality photos—reflects a dialogue between human intuition and machine assistance.

Ultimately, we’re proud of creating a museum that isn’t just visually stunning but emotionally resonant. Each object tells a story, and each reconstruction embodies the dedication and care of our team. From the tiniest pendant to the largest altar sculpture, every model is a testament to memory, presence and the human effort behind digital craft.