113 million investment and double the exhibition space: this is what the MNAC expansion will look like

BarcelonaThe expansion of the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) at the Victoria Eugenia Palace has been given the green light. This Monday, President Salvador Illa, Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun, and the Mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, officially presented the architectural project by the firms Harquitectes and Christ & Gantenbein, which unanimously won the competition a year ago with a proposal entitled Museum passageThe architectural plans for the expansion were unveiled at the Victoria Eugenia Palace itself as soon as several appeals filed by one of the teams that did not win the competition were dismissed. "Getting to this point is a collective success," said the museum's director, Pepe Serra. The most important goal of the expansion is that it will allow the museum to display its collections up to the present day. "We are resolving a unique cultural anomaly in Europe," said Serra. "The museum must be the home of artists," he added. One of the cornerstones of the project by Harquitectes and Christ & Gantenbein is to open the Victoria Eugenia Palace, which measures almost 15,000 square meters, to the city. For this reason, they have placed the entrance on the façade facing Plaça Carles Buïgas, which it shares with the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion. "It will be the grand lobby of the museum complex," said Josep Ricart, one of the founders of the Harquitectes studio. This will not be a showy intervention; the cut in Puig i Cadafalch's work, specifically in the base, will be strictly necessary. The existing ramp will also be removed. "The only place in the catalog entry that says we can intervene is the base," says Ricart. "We want to expand the public space within the MNAC," he emphasized. With the expansion, the museum will have almost double the exhibition space, increasing from 10,941 to 19,425 square meters. The total usable area of ​​the museum, including both public and internal spaces, will increase from 38,390 to 55,288 square meters. The built area will increase from 49,000 to 71,417 square meters.

As for the future exhibition halls, the renderings released this Monday depict them as quite austere, bathed in natural light streaming through the dozens of skylights in the palace roof. Circulation areas will be located in the spaces without skylights, adjacent to the facade. "The exhibition spaces are highly versatile, allowing them to meet current needs as well as adapt to future demands," states the press release issued by the museum.

The first exhibition spaces of the extension

The ground floor of the Victoria Eugenia Palace will house the lobby, welcome area, auditorium, and cafeteria, as well as the first exhibition space. This space can be divided between a temporary exhibition hall and a permanent collection gallery, depending on the museum's needs. Between the entrance lobby and the exhibition space, next to Puig i Cadafalch Square, there will be an intermediate floor housing the public spaces and the shop, with direct access from the square. The cafeteria and restaurant will be located at different points and levels along the public route to create different focal points.

The connection between the Victoria Eugenia Palace and the National Palace will be made, firstly, through a passageway that will serve as an "interlude between the city and the museum," and secondly, with an underground passage connecting to the current small temporary exhibition hall of the National Palace and the storage areas. This covered walkway can accommodate independent uses such as an auditorium or community spaces.

The planned expansion budget is €112.6 million, of which €104.3 million is for construction. The Catalan government (Generalitat) will contribute half (€56.3 million), the Barcelona City Council 20% (€22.5 million), and the Spanish government 30% (€33.8 million). The works, divided into two main sections and several phases, are scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2028, with the first phase of section 1, corresponding to the renovation of the Victoria Eugenia Palace, expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2029.

On the centenary of the 1929 International Exposition

The MNAC expansion will be linked to the commemoration of the centenary of the 1929 International Exposition and will form part of the urban transformation of Montjuïc, a cultural hub that also includes the Joan Miró Foundation, the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, CaixaForum Barcelona, ​​the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia, the Teatre Lliure, and the Mercat. In strictly artistic terms, the MNAC expansion completes Joaquim Folch i Torres's 1934 museum project, which was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. It was advocated for some twenty years ago by the museum's then-director, Eduard Carbonell. "The expansion is a unique opportunity to transform the conventional encyclopedic museum model and propose new forms of institutionalization, multiply perspectives, recover silenced narratives, re-examine established hierarchies, and confront conflict and historical memory," said Serra. The future MNAC will have four main values, two of which, according to Serra, are its "radical" public service nature and its desire to be a museum "for the whole of the country." Other values ​​include the "pluralistic" character of the project, which has the support of the sector and civil society, and the climate commitment involved in the intervention of a heritage building. "At a time when European public culture seems threatened by the specter of populist authoritarianism, in a context of war and unsettling polarization, the expansion of the MNAC represents a strong commitment to prioritizing the arts, culture, and their institutions, and placing them at the center of public discourse," the director stated.