The monastery of St Benet is one of the few monuments in which the different periods — from the mediaeval to the modern — have left their mark. From the original Romanesque monastery, through the Gothic and the Baroque, up to the Modernist period, all have left their legacy.
Much of the monastery (church, cloister and annexes, upper cloister, cellar...) has been converted into a museum illustrating the historical and emotional development of the monastery, and, at the same time, showing the social evolution of Catalonia over a thousand years of history.
The Món St Benet museum includes mediaeval and Modernist trails, and has been conceived as a multisensory installation, allowing visitors to glimpse life in the past. This means using technology to create different sensations. By means of complex technical and audiovisual devices, as well as simply looking at the monument and being given information about its history, the visitor can also enjoy an emotional experience. This represents a great museological innovation, which uses virtual reality as the key to creating a fully interactive event.
Visitors can also choose to take a guided tour around the architectural spaces of the monastery, but without visiting the museum. In this case, visitors receive a commentary on both the mediaeval and the Modernist areas, but without the interactive audiovisual element. Nevertheless, these visits show the key features of the monastery and its interesting collections of furniture and the decorative arts.
