Marina and José Pedro study a small model of Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia with their fingertips at an exhibition that allows the blind to discover some of the world’s most famous monuments.
“There are so many little details!” enthuses José Pedro González as he explores the wooden replica of Gaudí’s spectacular cathedral.
Marina Rojas said she “never imagined the Sagrada Familia looking like this”.
“It’s very surprising because you can get a sense of what the monument looks like, what the space inside is like,” she added.
Madrid’s Typological Museum (from the Greek “tuphlos” meaning blind) houses 37 replicas of monuments from around the world listed as World Heritage.
It was founded in 1992 by ONCE, Spain’s powerful national organization for the blind, and has 71,000 members.
Made of wood, stone, metal or resin, the models are accessible to all visitors – whether blind, sighted or partially sighted – allowing them to experience the sensory experience of architecture first-hand.
“There is no museum like this anywhere else in the world,” said tour guide Mireia Rodriguez, who herself is visually impaired.
“There are many other museums designed for visually impaired visitors, but they don’t have collections like this.”
ONCE, which operates lotteries and some very popular scratch-card games, brings in 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in annual revenue and pays the wages of its 72,000 employees, six in 10 of whom have some kind of disability.
The funds are also used for other investments, such as the museum, which welcomed 16,000 visitors in 2023,
In addition to the models, the museum displays artwork by the visually impaired and displays tools and devices used to help blind people access culture from the early 19th century to the 1980s, including Braille books.
Get closer to culture
After visiting a room filled with models of Spain’s most famous sites, including the Alhambra in Granada, the Royal Palace of Madrid and the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Rojas called the exhibition “really amazing.”
Another room is filled with global landmarks such as the Taj Mahal, London Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the Colosseum, the Parthenon in Athens, the Eiffel Tower, the Kremlin, the Old City of Jerusalem, and more.
“No matter how much they explain it to you, you can’t really understand what it’s like…and that causes a lot of frustration, so the fact that there’s a space like this is really cool,” said Rojas, who The eyes can see only a little light.
“I wish I had more opportunities to come into contact with art like this,” the 32-year-old said.
“Touch can give you a lot of information, even though most of the information is conveyed visually, so touch is very important,” she told AFP, with her guide dog Boston standing by her side.
However, to the curious, he is absolutely impossible.
“Don’t touch me, I’m working,” read the warning on his seatbelt.
Details like jewelry
It was while touching the Taj Mahal’s dome that González’s hands lingered longest on the Taj Mahal, his fingers capturing the smooth curves of the model made from a dazzling white palette that echoes northern India’s The mausoleum is made of the same Makrana marble.
“I knew the Taj Mahal was made of marble, but the first thing that surprised me was how cold it felt to touch it. The model itself is also made of marble,” said the 60-year-old, who has been blind since birth. said the old man.
“I love these Oriental domes and all the work that goes into carving the marble and the little details,” Gonzalez said, running his hands over the monument’s roof and facade.
“Of course it’s a building and not a piece of gold jewelry, but in many ways it looks like one,” he said with a smile.
