The voice of Salvador Dali will guide you around his birth house in Figueres

Understand the great artist’s legacy with the help of augmented reality technology

Salvador Dali is an icon of the surrealism genre in art and one of the most beloved and popular artists of the 20^th century on a global scale. And the process of turning his birth house in the northern Catalan town of Figueres can also be described as surreally long, given that it started back in 1995. But now, the project is nearly completed, and the house will welcome its first visitors this summer – just in time for the tourist season.

And in line with the standards of our days, the museum curators of Casa Natal Salvador Dalí promise that modern technology will be integrated as a way to boost and enrich the visitor experience considerably.

Tours will be conducted with the help of audio guides and images. Visitors will hear the voices of two people, a woman and of Dalí himself, as they explore the building where the artist was born in 1904.

Putting Figueres on the tourist map

"This place is not only where the genius was born, but it is the starting point of his career and Salvador Dalí's life," Figueres mayor Agnès Lladó said, as quoted by Agencia Catalana de Noticias.

All floors will be open to the public including the first, which houses the room where the artist was born and still preserves the original paint. Dali lived the first years of his life in the mezzanine of the building, a space that his notary father had rented together with the basement where he had his work office. However, the museum project takes place throughout the three-storey building.

In fact, acquiring ownership of the entire building was one of the main reasons why it took so long for the realization of the museum.

Tickets will go on sale online for 10 euros, with groups of at most eight people allowed to visit the building at a time. There’s an envisioned testing period in June and July, after which the museum will open to the public in August.

The local officials hope that the new institutions will boost the appeal of Figueres as a tourist destination given the emotional connection that the famous artist felt for his native town and how it influenced his work in later years.

The city is of the opinion that the house will be the most multi-faceted museum in the world dedicated to Dali, where art lovers will be able to experience his life from a variety of perspectives: personal, artistic, intellectual, hobbies, etc. Voice and sound recordings, images, mappings, projections, sound and light effects, a reproduction of Dalí's father's old notary, a soundtrack and a kaleidoscope will make up the entire tour.