Javier G. Paradelo.
Santillana del Mar (EFE).- The Palacio de Los Velardes, an emblematic building in Santillana del Mar and the highest expression of Renaissance architecture, has resurfaced after more than 500 years, transformed into a museum that tells its story and that of the illustrious people who they have inhabited it through virtual reality.
Virtual reality and artificial intelligence recreate on its three floors, with more than 2,000 square meters, the historical moments of its first owner, the inquisitor of the early medieval period Pedro Velarde y Villa, and of his family for more than 300 years of uninterrupted way.
It also recounts the lives of more current people such as the novelist and poet Ricardo León (Barcelona, 1877-1943), who owned the palace and lived in it for long stays, or the Dukes of Parcent, the Prince of Hohenlhoe, the Duchess Trinidad van Scholtz Hermensdorff, and even a Nazi spy who hid in that building for a year and a half.
In an interview with EFE, the creator of the museographic project, Ricardo Pascual, explains that the creation of this museum stems from a private initiative and has required more than two years of “deep remodeling” of the palace after decades without being inhabited, and another year more for the museum project.
500 year old original furniture
The museum hosts “an important technological load” to recreate 500 years of history with audiovisuals in which the La Machina theater company has collaborated, but also with thousands of original pieces, from books to tableware, weapons, decorative elements or some restored carriages located at the entrance.
Along with this, the rooms display works of art, furniture, manuscripts, ceramics or personal objects from their former owners, while on some walls paintings or mirrors reveal daily scenes of their inhabitants.
Ricardo Pascual ensures that everything allows “introducing its own inhabitants back into the house” and that visitors enjoy “an immersive experience” that makes them relive the history of the house and the Velarde lineage through classic recreations and other virtual ones. interspersed on the first two floors.
Narrations, light effects and ‘ghost’ images that are presented in the form of a hologram are also incorporated into the experience to tell the story of the house, and even relive the impossible dialogue between Pedro Velarde and Duchess Trinidad van Scholtz Hermensdorff, that oppose the times in which they lived.
dramatized visits
The museum, which opens this Friday, can be toured through a guided and dramatized tour of the first two floors, as well as the last one, which is more freely accessible, to complete an experience that, according to Ricardo Pascual, can last almost two hours.
And for the little ones, the Palacio de los Velarde Museum discovers its 500-year history through a story illustrated by the artist Laura Sua, which allows them to discover the people who inhabited it and the time in which they did so.
