ACCIONA brings art masterpieces to life with VR museum tour

acciona revives Prado Museum’s collection

In Madrid, ACCIONA and the Museo del Prado unveil ART MASTERS: A Virtual Reality Experience, a pioneering project merging classical art with immersive technology. The exhibition is redefining how the world encounters classical art, using cutting-edge virtual reality to bring five of the museum’s most celebrated masterpieces to life. Visitors step inside Velázquez’s Las Meninas, Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, Veronese’s Venus and Adonis, Brueghel and Rubens’s The Sense of Sight, and Goya’s Witches’ Sabbath, exploring them in ways never before possible. For the first time in the Prado’s history, works that have never, and will never, leave its walls are reaching global audiences through an immersive, narrative-driven experience.

Since its international debut, ART MASTERS has captivated audiences in two major cities. In Shanghai, where it opened on July 4, 2026, the exhibition drew over 10,000 visitors in just a few months – its run extended due to overwhelming public demand. In Buenos Aires, the experience launched on September 4 and will continue until December 4, already attracting more than 8,600 attendees. These milestones mark the beginning of a global journey, with new cities soon to be revealed, building anticipation for audiences eager to step inside the Prado’s masterpieces.

ACCIONA creates virtual reality experience with Prado Museum masterpieces | all images courtesy of ACCIONA

ART MASTERS: A Virtual Reality Experience

ACCIONA’s initiative responds to a pressing question for museums in the digital age: how can a classical art institution evolve in a world dominated by entertainment, gaming, and immersive technology? By combining Museum Prado’s artistic treasures with the latest advances in artificial intelligence and virtual reality, the company‘s experience introduces a visual, interactive and deeply engaging kind of storytelling.

Curated under the direction of Alejandro Vergara, head of Conservation of Flemish Painting and Northern Schools at the Prado, ART MASTERS demonstrates how innovation can enhance cultural storytelling without replacing the physical museum experience. The experience blends artistic heritage with immersive media, appealing both to seasoned museum-goers and to new audiences familiar with gaming, film, and interactive design.

through ART MASTERS, visitors interact with some of the most representative works of the Prado Museum’s collection through virtual reality glasses

the museum guard takes visitors into imagined and real rooms

Unlike traditional tours, this immersive experience turns the visitor into a participant rather than a spectator. At the heart of ART MASTERS lies a powerful story: a fictional museum guard, on his last day of work, leads visitors through an imaginative 35-minute journey across real and dreamlike spaces. Doors creak open onto Bosch’s surreal landscapes, shadowy corridors lead to Goya’s haunted visions, and elevators rise toward Velázquez’s royal court. Each scene blends meticulous academic research with theatrical staging, sound design, and three-dimensional storytelling. Instead of standing before static canvases, visitors unlock secret passageways, interact with characters, and witness paintings transform into cinematic worlds unfolding around them.

Each painting is reinterpreted through narrative and technology while preserving its historical and artistic integrity. Visitors begin with the luminous The Sense of Sight (1617) by Brueghel and Rubens, before entering Las Meninas (1656), where the Infanta Margarita and her court seem to meet the viewer’s gaze. They then move into the mythological drama of Veronese’s Venus and Adonis (c. 1580), descend into the unsettling world of Goya’s Witches’ Sabbath (1820–23), and finally emerge into Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1500), a realm where paradises and nightmares come vividly to life.

through the headset, doors creak open onto Bosch’s surreal landscapes