VIVE Arts Partners with Château de Versailles on Immersive VR Experience Revisiting Palace’s Lost History

Versailles: Lost Gardens of the Sun King brings visitors into vanished sites central to Versailles’s heritage

VERSAILLES, ÎLE-DE-FRANCE, FRANCE, March 25, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Now open through January 4, 2026, an unprecedented immersive experience at the Château de Versailles revives for the first time three historically significant lost spaces of Versailles’ gardens built under Louis XIV, the “Sun King.” Versailles: Lost Gardens of the Sun King offers a collective and interactive virtual reality (VR) location-based experience (LBE) of these vanished sites and allows visitors to engage closely with this under-explored aspect of French royal history and Louis XIV’s legacy. The landmark experience is co-produced by VIVE Arts, the global arts and technology initiative that supports artistic experimentation with nascent technologies, GEDEON Experiences, the innovation branch of GEDEON Media Group and narrative, immersive experiences creator with Small Creative and the Château de Versailles.

Developed through the meticulous mining of archival documents, expert testimony, and archaeological remains, and brought to life with cutting-edge technology and HTC’s VIVE Focus Vision mobile headsets, this immersive LBE transports users to the first gardens of the Château de Versailles at the height of its royal influence in 1682. Through the scientific, historical, and artistic reconstruction of three emblematic sites—the Royal Menagerie, the Labyrinth Grove, and the Grotto of Tethys—visitors can investigate the role these spaces played in shaping the Sun King’s historical legacy.

Guided by André Le Nôtre, the architect of the gardens, the free-roaming, multi-user experience invites users to rediscover a Versailles where entertainment and nature became instruments of power and splendor, bearing witness to the royal ambitions of Louis XIV, and illustrating the complex relationship between art, architecture, and royal power. The experience’s interactivity capabilities enable users to engage with the historically accurate environment, enhancing the possibilities for self-guided exploration and the extent to which visitors can learn from this virtual recreation.

Celina Yeh, Executive Director of VIVE Arts, said, “This landmark project builds on VIVE Arts’ many years of partnering with leading cultural institutions around the globe to create innovative immersive projects that expand the ways culture can be experienced. This collaboration with the Château de Versailles is a testament to the transformative possibilities of VR. Through the power of immersive tech, we can bring to life previously inaccessible culture and history for contemporary audiences.”

Christophe Leribault, President of the Château de Versailles, said, “Scientific innovation has always been part of the history of Versailles, from the most precise clocks to the first hot air balloons flights. Now, the introduction of virtual reality not only seamlessly continues this legacy, but it also allows us to explore a part of Versailles that was thought to be lost forever.”

The partnership builds on VIVE Arts’ program of commissions and institutional collaborations that brings together artists, creators, and cultural organizations with cutting-edge, immersive technologies—driving innovation in the way culture is shared and experienced. VIVE Arts’ recent projects include La Palette de Van Gogh at the Musée d’Orsay, on view as part of the Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise exhibition (2024); a virtual reality artwork and installation by artist and quantum physicist Dr. Libby Heaney commissioned to reopen Somerset House Studios’ G31 project space; and inaugural virtual reality projects of artists including Ryan Gander’s first AI VR work at Esther Schipper Gallery in Berlin and Xavier Veilhan’s debut VR experience at Perrotin Shanghai. Previous institutional partners include the Venice Biennale, Serpentine Galleries, Triennale Milano, Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Musée du Louvre, among others.

Versailles: Lost Gardens of the Sun King
Now open through January 4, 2026, at Château de Versailles
Co-produced by GEDEON Experiences, Small Creative, VIVE Arts and the Château de Versailles with the support of CNC.
A 25-minute virtual reality location-based entertainment experience
Recommended for ages 8 and up
Information and ticketing: en.chateauversailles.fr

About VIVE Arts
VIVE Arts harnesses cutting-edge technology to transform the way culture is made, shared and experienced. Over the past seven years, VIVE Arts has pioneered the use of immersive technologies in the arts and culture sector, inspiring boundary-pushing artists, creators and leading international institutions to use VR, AR, XR, AI and blockchain for the first time, creating groundbreaking digital artworks and experiences. A leader in the art and technology space, VIVE Arts develops digital innovation projects which preserve the world’s heritage and culture, offering new ways to engage and extend access to wider audiences.

Visit vivearts.com and follow on Twitter and Instagram.

About GEDEON Experiences
As creators of multi-format narratives, we explore immersive technologies to deliver spectacular cultural experiences. GEDEON Experiences is the innovative branch of GEDEON Media Group, which has been a major figure in documentary production in France and abroad for the past 25 years.
We design and produce multi-format immersive experiences based on the strengths that have made our success: the grasp of the codes of storytelling and image, the access to exclusive subjects and the ability to lead large-scale international projects. As experts in 3D reconstructions of lost environments, always as close as possible to historical and scientific reality, we are particularly committed to raising public awareness about culture, history, great discoveries, the arts, the environment and science.
We are constantly looking for new forms of storytelling and creation to offer ever more astonishing and innovative sensory experiences, in the service of emotion and knowledge. We are pushing back the frontiers of technology to enable all audiences to discover, understand and dream.

About Small Creative
Small Creative blends technology and culture to create immersive experiences for families and friends. As both a studio and production company, Small Creative develops and produces a catalog of collective and free-roaming VR experiences specifically designed for the location-based market. With a team of 40 professionals, we provide comprehensive artistic, technological and financial engineering services. Our experts create ambitious content using tools and technologies they have mastered over many years. In the past year, we have conceived and produced award-winning virtual reality experiences including "Gaudi, l'Atelier du Divin" (co-produced with Gédéon Expériences) and "Titanic: Echoes of the Past" (co-produced with Eclipso). These experiences are distributed and operated worldwide through our “OnSite” solution. Small Creative is a member of French Immersive Studios.

Lila Price
Resnicow and Associates
+1 212-671-5168
email us here