Sight, Sound and Smell in Immersive Experiences of Urban History: Virtual Vauxhall Gardens Case Study

TL;DR

The paper addresses the gap in multisensory virtual reality for cultural heritage by integrating olfactory stimuli into a VR reconstruction of London's Vauxhall Gardens Rotunda. It details a MIDI-driven, networked olfactory display (ULOD) synchronized with visuals and sound, implemented within a BIM-to-real-time workflow and evaluated through mixed-methods in museum and lab settings. Key contributions include demonstrating the feasibility of synchronized scent delivery in a public VR exhibit, and offering nuanced insights into how olfaction affects presence, engagement, and user experience, along with a candid discussion of technical and evaluative challenges. The work advances methodological guidance for sensory-history VR installations and highlights future directions for scalable, ethical, and authentic multisensory heritage experiences in public institutions.

Abstract

We explore the integration of multisensory elements in virtual reality reconstructions of historical spaces through a case study of the Virtual Vauxhall Gardens project. While visual and auditory components have become standard in digital heritage experiences, the addition of olfactory stimuli remains underexplored, despite its powerful connection to memory and emotional engagement. This research investigates how multisensory experiences involving olfaction can be effectively integrated into VR reconstructions of historical spaces to enhance presence and engagement with cultural heritage. In the context of a VR reconstruction of London's eighteenth-century Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, we developed a networked portable olfactory display capable of synchronizing specific scents with visual and auditory elements at pivotal moments in the virtual experience. Our evaluation methodology assesses both technical implementation and user experience, measuring presence, and usability metrics across diverse participant groups. Our results show that integrating synchronized olfactory stimuli into the VR experience can enhance user engagement and be perceived positively, contributing to a unique and immersive encounter with historical settings. While presence questionnaires indicated a strong sense of auditory presence and control, with other sensory factors rated moderately, user experience of attractiveness was exceptionally high; qualitative feedback suggested heightened sensory awareness and engagement influenced by the inclusion and anticipation of smell. Our results suggest that evaluating multisensory VR heritage experiences requires a nuanced approach, as standard usability metrics may be ill-suited and 'realism' might be less critical than creating an evocative, historically informed, and emotionally resonant experience......

Figures (10)

• Figure 1: The Inside of the Elegant Music Room in Vaux-Hall Gardens' [the Rotunda] (anonymous engraving after B. Cole, c.1752. David Coke's collection CVRC 0127, with permission).
• Figure 2: Aerial plan of the Rotunda (A) and side section (B). Another example of those discrepancies was the positioning of columns supporting the main rotunda's roof next to the stage area. The plan drawing suggests that the columns were distributed along a straight line, which was deemed unrealistic due to the fact that their main function was to transfer the weight of the rotunda down to the foundations. To address this issue, the columns in the virtual model were distributed along a circular path mapping the outline of the rotunda, thus ensuring structural integrity (C) Interior architectural virtual model before decoration (artwork: Paul Long, Artur Adam Soczawa-Stronczyk & Supervision: Mateusz Bocian).
• Figure 3: Stills from VR Vauxhall Gardens within the Rotunda including candelabra (bottom).
• Figure 4: University of Leicester Olfactory Display (ULOD) system schematic.
• Figure 5: Our olfactory display repurposes the MIDI protocol to support multi-channel odor compositions in time, synchronized with VR events. Olfactory displays can be daisy-chained to add additional odor channels.