Barça unveils new temporary museum with immersive technology

FC Barcelona unveiled its new temporary museum on Tuesday while renovation works on the Camp Nou stadium get underway. The exhibition includes numerous trophies, Barça jerseys, and immersive technology.

The museum has moved to the Palau de Gel ice skating rink, and one of the main attractions is an immersive audiovisual circular space that allows visitors to get close to former and current Barça players such as Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, Johan Cruyff, Alexia Putellas, Pedri, and many other stars.

To bring some of them back in a Barça jersey, the museum used deep fake technology to create four-meter tall holograms projected into the big circular space, which used to be the club's ice skating rink.

To do so, they used actors who resembled the players and then added the players' faces using artificial intelligence.

This unique 10-minute audiovisual experience "is one of the largest, if not the largest, where deep fake and immersive technology are combined in the world of sports," the team behind the exhibition said.

The museum takes up over 2,400 square meters and has different areas telling the history of the club. The Barça museum is the most visited in Catalonia, and the third in Spain, after Madrid's Reina Sofia and Prado museums.

Women's team

The new museum offers, aside from the 'Masia' training academy zone, a place focused on the legends that have played for FC Barcelona, including Argentinian Lionel Messi and his several Ballon d'Or, and Dutchman Johan Cruyff, the coach responsible for the Barça 'Dream Team' in 1992, which won the club's first Champions League trophy.

But the latest Champions League title won, in this case by the women's team on June 3, will also have a special place. And from now on, "and this is not related to the [latest] achievement, but was well-planned in advance," FCB museum director Jordi Penas said, "when referring to the first team of the club, we will not only be the talking about the men's team but also the women's team."

This has already become a reality in the new interactive room with 11 columns, each for one of the main players of the men's and women's teams, with different information, the trophies they have won, some memorable moments on the pitch, and even their Spotify playlist.

2,000 hours of videos

Visitors are expected to spend around 45 to 60 minutes enjoying the exhibition, but "many will stay longer," Penas said, as they have over 2,000 hours of footage of Barça's history, 5,000 photos, and plenty of never-before-seen material.

One of the areas shows the future look of the Camp Nou, and using Catalonia's national archive material and artificial intelligence, they have created a projection mapping display combining future images with past photos that come to life thanks to AI.

And for those who prefer actual objects, there is a mosaic made out of 200 different jerseys that the team has used across the years, as well as dozens of trophies, including the five Champions Leagues the men's team has won and the more recent ones, won by the women's team.

Virtual reality experience

And if all the immersive experience was not enough, FC Barcelona has put together a virtual reality experience where the most adventurous can travel to the Barça universe, walk around a unique virtual environment and even discover the interior of some of the players' lockers.

This part of the show, which will be the last stop, can see between 30 to 40 people connected simultaneously, and they won't kick each other as virtual avatars appear if you are close to someone else.

One million visitors

Barça's idea is to remain in this temporary museum for two years, long past the November 2024 deadline for the team to start playing at Camp Nou after the works and their exile in Barcelona's Olympic Stadium.

"This is a temporary museum we can use as a test laboratory for what is most interesting for our audience," Jordi Penas said during a tour around the area for the media ahead of the official opening on June 7, 2023.

Overall, officials expect around one million visitors annually, "half of what used to come to the old museum," because of the difficulty to get to Camp Nou because of the renovation works and because the space is "not as big as the other museum."

Tickets will be similarly priced to the current ones, and the investment for the museum "is justified financially and emotionally, as a lot of fans will be able to come to our home [including fans here] and relive history, and see several new displays," Jordi Penas said.