Kuenta Heritage Aruba's
Living History

Point your phone at a heritage marker and unlock archival photographs, historical stories, and 3D models — no app download required.

What is Kuenta?

Archival collections, made discoverable at the site itself

Kuenta — "to count" and "to tell" in Papiamento — layers archival photographs, documented history, and 3D reconstruction directly onto Aruba's protected monuments. Point a phone at a printed marker and the collections held at BNA and ANA appear in context — at the place they describe, for anyone standing there.

Featured Experiences

Two ways to explore

Map of Aruba, W.F.R. Suringar after Lloyd, 1815 — Biblioteca Nacional Aruba
Augmented Reality · No app required

Heritage AR Guide

Scan a printed marker at Fort Zoutman or Alto Vista Chapel to unlock 3D reconstructions of the 1868–1937 tower phases, archival photographs with full BNA · ANA catalog attribution, and a cinematic intro drawn from the Battle of Dogger Bank record.

Open AR Guide
Alto Vista Chapel altar — Nooyen Collection
Cinematic Story · English & Papiamento

Alto Vista · La Historia

Five chapters, 1750–1952. From Domingo Antonio Silvestre's first chapel to the wartime vow of Sjon Kita — sourced from J. Hartog's Aruba, Vroeger en Nu (1961) and the archival collections of BNA and ANA.

Watch the Story

Archival collections in use

Built on primary sources

BNA

Biblioteca Nacional Aruba

N.J. Hartog collection (CAHA-001-018), architectural drawings, Lloyd map 1815, fort photographs. Catalog numbers cited throughout.

ANA

Archivo Nacional Aruba

De Graaff restoration series (COL-DEGRAAFF), Delnoij collection, BUVO administrative records. Catalog numbers cited throughout.

SMFA

Monumentenfonds Aruba

Fort Zoutman site photographs (CUNUCU-FORTZOUTMAN series). Presented with full institutional credit.

3D

3D Reconstructions

Five tower phases (1868–modern) and the 1798 fort, modeled from the BNA-DIG-HARTOG-CAHA-001-018-109 architectural drawings.

For visitors · No app. No install.

Point. Scan. Discover.

A visitor opens kuentaheritage.com on any Android or iOS phone in Chrome, holds the camera over a printed marker placed near the monument, and the archival record appears — photographs, history, and 3D models — overlaid on the real-world view. No account, no download, no cost.

Each image is displayed with its catalog number and source institution. Every historical claim is sourced. The collections are not extracted — they are presented in the context that gives them meaning.

Monument coverage · v1.0

Sites currently in the guide

Fort Zoutman & Willem III Tower — Oranjestad · 8 chapters, 1796–1983 AR · BNA · ANA · SMFA
Alto Vista Chapel — Noord · 5 chapters, 1750–1952 AR · BNA · ANA
Alto Vista · La Historia — cinematic story, EN & PAP Story · Hartog 1961