New La Pedrera mixed reality experience 'brings Gaudí back into the future'

Antoni Gaudí's Catalan Modernist wonders have long attracted architecture enthusiasts from around the globe.

But from July 7, Barcelona's Casa Milà, more commonly known as La Pedrera, will become the first place in Spain that will be able to be explored with HoloLens 2 mixed reality smartglasses which, in the words of Microsoft Spain general manager Alberto Granados, "bring Gaudí back into the future."

"Gaudí was an extreme innovator and a person that was disrupting in his time with Modernism," Granados said. "We are doing something similar now with the technology."

For €18, adults and children alike will be able to "discover the secrets" of one of the Catalan capital's UNESCO World Heritage sites thanks to new technology used in the La Pedrera Magical Vision multi-sensorial experience.

Developed by a multidisciplinary team from Microsoft, Glassworks creative studio, Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation, and Laie bookstore, La Pedrera Magical Vision will provide visitors with HoloLens 2 head-mounted displays that allow them to see both reality and Gaudí-inspired holograms of animals, plants, architectural elements or people. 

Accompanied by spatial audio, the experience teaches them about "Gaudí's architecture and the period of Modernism, but with new technology," Marta Lacambra Puig, the general director of the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation told Catalan News. 

La Pedrera Magical Vision will only be available on the first floor of the building, which will be open to the public for the first time ever, and will allow visitors to learn about the building's history – and fascinating tidbits – in an immersive manner: Did you know that Jack Nicholson starred in a movie that was shot there? Or that the basement served as a bomb shelter during the Spanish Civil War? Or do you know how Pere Milà, who commissioned the building that bears his name, proposed to his wealthy wife, Roser Segimon?