History of Architecture is the discipline that records, studies and interprets heritage architecture. It studies its forms, purposes, and most importantly its evolution. Studying the History of Architecture is extremely important because it enables architecture students to understand the society and culture of the past they represent which is very useful when working as a contemporary architect. This paper proposes a means whereby the students can be integrated with, and part of, this past.
Virtual reality is a technology with important applications in the teaching world. In a discipline like History, and more specifically History of Architecture, thanks to virtual reality, students can understand the architecture of a heritage building and the elements that comprise it in a more natural and intuitive way, using all the senses as if on a real visit. Students can freely move around historical spaces and scenes virtually reconstructed by computer. They can even enter the building on their own accord, make their own decisions regarding itinerary, the pace, the time they wish to devote to the visit, the aspects they want to pay attention to and the angle they wish to view from.
This paper argues that changing the educational tools of teaching the course of History of Architecture -at the Department of Architecture, Assiut University- increases the acquired knowledge about the architectural content and bridges the gap between past and present. If the students could become the actual designers of virtual architectural heritage buildings, this allows them to become the protagonists of what happening, and this will give them better degree of freedom and creativity. This can be happen by merging two courses; History of Architecture and Computer Application II in order to increase the motivation that arouses students, more motivation equals more learning. The degree of interest and satisfaction while carrying out the didactic activities, modeling heritage buildings, is considered essential and fundamental to positive learning. This potential idea may provide the Egyptian tourism market with a series of primitive 3D models of Egyptian heritage buildings to be evolved and then to be utilized in the domains of virtual heritage and digital tourism.