Museum in Madrid offers visually impaired visitors a feel of the wonders across the world

With their fingertips, Marina Rojas and Jose Pedro Gonzalez went through a small-scale model of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia church in an exhibition which allows the visually impaired to discover some of the world's best-known monuments.

"There are just so many tiny details! And what a strange roof," enthused Gonzalez as he explored the wooden replica of Antoni Gaudi's spectacular basilica.

Rojas said that she "never imagined the Sagrada Familia like that".

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"It's very surprising, because you get a general idea of what the monument is like, what the space inside is like," she added.

The Madrid Typhlological Museum — from the Greek "tuphlos", meaning blind — houses 37 reproductions of global monuments that are listed as world heritage sites.

It was set up in 1992 by ONCE, Spain's national organization for the blind which has 71,000 members.

Made of wood, stone, metal or resin, the models are accessible to all visitors — whether blind, sighted or partially sighted — giving them a hands-on, sensory experience of the architecture.

"There's no other place in the world with a museum like this. …they don't have this kind of collection" said guide Mireia Rodriguez, who is herself visually impaired.

ONCE runs a lottery and some scratchcard games which bring in 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) a year and pays the salaries of its 72,000 employees; six out of 10 of them have some sort of disability.

The funds are also used for other investments, such as the museum, which in 2023 welcomed 16,000 visitors.

Besides the models, the museum also features artworks by people who are visually impaired and a display of tools and equipment used from the early 19th century until the 1980s to help visually impaired people access culture, including books in Braille.

Up close

After wandering through a room housing models of Spain's top attractions, such as the Alhambra palace in Granada, Madrid's Royal Palace and the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, Rojas branded the exhibition "really marvelous".

Another room is filled with global landmarks such as the Taj Mahal, London Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Rome's Colosseum, the Parthenon in Athens, the Eiffel Tower, the Kremlin and the Old City of Jerusalem to name but a few.

"No matter how much they explain to you, you can't really get a proper image of what it's like… and that creates a lot of frustration, so the fact there are spaces like this is fantastic," said Rojas, whose eyes can only see a bit of light.

It was while feeling the dome of the Taj Mahal that Gonzalez's hands lingered longest, his fingers taking in the model's smooth curves made of the very same Makrana marble as the dazzling white mausoleum in northern India.

"I knew the Taj Mahal was made of marble, but the first thing that surprised me was touching it and how cold it felt, that the model itself was also made of marble," said the 60-year-old, who has been blind since birth.

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Gonzalez, his hands gliding over the monument's rooftops and facades, said he was impressed by all the work that goes into carving the marble and the little details.

"I wish there were more chances to touch such works of art," said Rojas. "Touch gives you a lot of information, even if most comes through sight, so it's very important to touch."