Scent design for Spanish museums: a sense that most exhibitions are still missing

Spain has some of Europe's most visited and most ambitious museums. The Prado, the Reina Sofía, the Guggenheim Bilbao — institutions that have spent decades refining how art is shown, lit, contextualised and interpreted. And yet, like most museums worldwide, they rely almost entirely on a single sense: sight.

That is changing. And the museums that move first will have a significant advantage.

What is happening in European museums right now

Across northern Europe, a growing number of cultural institutions have begun integrating scent into their permanent collections and temporary exhibitions. Not as a novelty, but as a considered curatorial tool — one that deepens visitor engagement, extends dwell time, and makes exhibitions genuinely accessible to visitors who experience the world differently.

The research supports this shift. Studies consistently show that multisensory exhibitions produce higher visitor satisfaction, stronger emotional memory, and longer stays than traditional visual-only formats. Scent, in particular, has a neurological advantage that no other sensory addition can replicate: its direct connection to the areas of the brain responsible for emotion and memory. Scent design for Spanish museums is still rare — and that is precisely what makes it such a significant opportunity.

I have been working in this field for eighteen years, with institutions including the Van Gogh Museum, the Mauritshuis, the Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, and Rijksmuseum Twenthe. Every project has confirmed the same thing: when visitors can smell something next to what they are looking at, the experience changes fundamentally.

Why Spain is ready for this

Spanish museums are already investing heavily in visitor experience. Immersive exhibitions, interactive installations, digital layers — the appetite for innovation is clear. Scent is the logical next step, and in many ways the most powerful one, precisely because it is still so rare.

A curator in Madrid or Bilbao or Seville who introduces a scent element into an exhibition is

not following a trend. They are ahead of one.

There are practical advantages to working with a designer based in Andalusia. No long-distance logistics, no language barrier for on-site work, and a direct understanding of the Spanish cultural context — the specific atmosphere of a Moorish palace, the smell of an Andalusian summer, the sensory world of a Mediterranean port — that an designer working from Amsterdam or London simply does not have.

What a scent project looks like in practice

Every project begins with the concept, not the technology. The question is never "what scent system should we use" — it is "what does this exhibition need to feel like, and how can scent serve that?"

From there, fragrances are developed specifically for the project: custom compositions that translate the atmosphere, era, or emotional core of what is being shown. The technical delivery — whether a subtle diffuser, an interactive smell station, or a precisely timed release — follows the concept rather than driving it.

Budgets and timelines vary widely. The entry point for a single-room scent experience is more accessible than most curators expect. And the impact on visitors is immediate.

An invitation

If you are a museum curator, exhibition designer, or cultural institution director in Spain or elsewhere in Europe, and you are thinking about what scent could bring to your next project — I would be glad to have that conversation.

Not a sales pitch. A conversation about your exhibition, your visitors, and whether scent has a role to play.

Jorg Hempenius is a scent designer based in Almuñécar, Andalusia, with eighteen years of experience creating olfactory experiences for museums and cultural institutions across Europe.