TECCO transforms the San Juan de la Peña experience with an immersive videomapping

The Monumental Site of San Juan de la Peña reopens its doors to the public with a top-tier cultural experience that places this gem of Aragonese heritage at the forefront of historical and museographic storytelling. TECCO was the company responsible for the comprehensive supply, engineering, and deployment of the new immersive audiovisual system in the church of the New Monastery, turning the 17th-century architecture into a large-format digital canvas where the origins of the Kingdom of Aragon come to life.

The premiere of this show arrives at a moment of profound significance for the community. Following intensive months of recovery in the wake of the Las Peñas de Riglos forest fire—which this past summer came within fifty meters of the Old Monastery and required the remains of the Royal Pantheon to be temporarily safeguarded in Huesca—Turismo de Aragón has resumed cultural and tourism operations at the site with this decisive technological initiative.

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An immersive journey to the birth of a kingdom

Located inside the baroque church of the New Monastery, the installation transports visitors through the key episodes that forged the Aragonese identity: medieval resistance sheltered beneath the rock, foundational legends, the lineage of the early monarchs, and the historical expansion of the Crown of Aragon.

The staging transforms the traditional visit into a dynamic sensory event. Guided by a visual narrative calibrated to the site's architectural contours and to custom rear-projection screens integrated into the lateral arches, the story flows across the space, enveloped by a multichannel soundscape and synchronized scenic lighting that reshapes the temple’s atmosphere at every turning point of the script.

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The engineering challenge: Baroque scale, heritage preservation, and high precision

Intervening in an asset registered as Cultural Heritage of Interest (BIC), featuring a 500 m² floor plan and vaults soaring to 17 meters in height, required an engineering deployment where the technology delivers maximum visual impact while maintaining an unobtrusive, 100% reversible physical footprint:

• Projection engineering and a 14-channel laser matrix: To evenly cover the complex geometry of the apse and its dome, TECCO designed an array of 10 Optoma laser projectors equipped with medium- and short-throw zoom optics. Advanced soft-edge blending and geometric correction techniques were applied to achieve a seamless visual surface with high color accuracy. In the central nave, overhead projection was resolved through a custom structure suspended at a height of 16 meters with a 7-meter vertical drop, preventing invasive anchors into the original masonry.
• Custom framing and rear projection tailored to the stonework: In the lateral naves, four large-format rear-projection screens (5 × 6.5 meters) were engineered, tensioned onto perimeter frames curved with a 2.5-meter radius to fit the semicircular arches. Four projectors operating in portrait orientation (9:16) project onto these surfaces, delivering an immersive 360-degree visual envelope throughout the temple.
• Media management and centralized show control with Dataton WATCHOUT: The simultaneous orchestration of all 14 HD video feeds is managed via the WATCHOUT platform. The system handles 3D multi-projector warping across moldings and screens, ensuring frame-accurate synchronization across video streams, audio tracks, and lighting commands.
• Multichannel acoustics and speech intelligibility with ECLER: Delivering clear speech reproduction without triggering the natural reverberation of a 17-meter-high baroque church required a dedicated electroacoustic design. TECCO deployed a 15-channel discrete surround sound setup featuring 12 acoustic loudspeakers (500W RMS) and 3 strategically positioned subwoofers. All cabling and equipment were aligned with the cornices to remain visually unobtrusive within the historic space.
• Dynamic scenic lighting with LightShark: Ten DMX RGB LED fixtures positioned at the base of the vault follow the narrative pace of the production. Managed by LightShark processors over DMX/Art-Net protocols, the lighting shifts automatically, transitioning smoothly from show blackouts to the ambient levels required for guided tours.
• Autonomous operation and operational efficiency: The system was engineered for unattended operation and straightforward handling by non-technical site staff. The setup incorporates single-touch power-on/shut-down sequences and loops the show across three selectable language tracks, optimizing daily management and routine maintenance demands.

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Regional revitalization and cultural tourism

This installation serves as an innovative driver for the socio-economic vitality of surrounding municipalities, cementing San Juan de la Peña as a destination where cultural heritage and advanced immersive technologies come together.

With this project, TECCO reinforces its position in the design, engineering, and turnkey implementation of bespoke immersive experiences for museums, monuments, and historic landmarks, applying technology to bring history forward with emotional impact and technical rigor.