PRADO MASTERPIECES ARRIVES AT POWERHOUSE ARTS
Making its US debut at Brooklyn’s Powerhouse Arts until December 20, 2026, Masterpieces: A Virtual Experience of the Museo del Prado transforms classical paintings into three-dimensional, navigable environments. Created by ACCIONA Cultura in exclusive collaboration with Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado, the 30-minute free-roam virtual reality installation invites visitors to step inside the canvas and explore classic art together. Driven by academic curatorship and faithful replication, the experience combines original storytelling, meticulous spatial design, and immersive soundscapes, turning passive viewing into an intimate, shared sensory journey.
Masterpieces: A Virtual Experience of the Museo del Prado | all images courtesy of ACCIONA Cultura
ACCIONA CULTURA BRIDGES CURATORSHIP AND IMMERSIVE NARRATIVE
Marking its latest international iteration following presentations in Madrid, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, and Shanghai, the project expands ACCIONA Cultura’s portfolio of immersive spatial environments, which includes the Grand Egyptian Museum and New York’s Hip Hop Museum. Curated by Alejandro Vergara, Head of Conservation of Flemish Painting and Northern Schools at the Museo del Prado, the experience draws on original archives to balance historical accuracy with digital innovation. Transporting visitors inside the worlds of the paintings through an original narrative, Masterpieces offers audiences a new way to engage with their stories, symbolism, and detail.
drawing on original archives, the experience balances historical accuracy with digital innovation
REFRAMING THE SPECTATOR AS ACTIVE PARTICIPANT
Guided by the voice of a fictional security guard on his final night shift before retirement, visitors travel through an imaginary museum where the canvas opens into a multi-user digital environment. Because several of these masterpieces rarely travel or cannot leave Madrid, the physical-digital installation at Powerhouse Arts acts as a live architectural laboratory that redefines traditional art viewing. ACCIONA Cultura and the Prado address this shift by weaving five pivotal works, including Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel’s The Sense of Sight, Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas, Paolo Veronese’s Venus and Adonis, Francisco de Goya’s Witches’ Sabbath, and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, into a continuous, fluid spatial narrative.
guided by the narrative of a security guard on his final shift, visitors navigate an imaginary museum
Without presenting these historic canvases as silent relics isolated behind glass, thoughtful exhibition design dissolves cold museum distance to let the underlying stories breathe. Expanding allegorical cabinets, royal studios, classical myths, haunting shadows, and surreal worlds into interconnected 3D spaces builds an atmosphere of genuine wonder and personal discovery. Visitors no longer stand back in passive crowds, they move through the physical space together, engaging in an intimate dialogue with the art. Allowing audiences to feel the human behind the canvas shifts the traditional dynamic of viewing, reframing the spectator as an active co-creator within the spectacle.
classic canvases expand into virtual environments
through original storytelling, immersive audio, and 3D spatial design, Masterpieces invites audiences to discover historic works