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 Palau Victoria Eugenia has been given the green light. This Monday, the president, Salvador Illa; the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun; and the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, officially presented the architectural project by the studios 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 Palau Victoria Eugenia itself as soon as several appeals filed by one of the unsuccessful competition teams were resolved. "Getting to this point is a collective success," said the museum's director, Pepe Serra, who described the expansion as "legitimate and necessary." Similarly, for the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, the expansion is a national project, "of the same importance as the Sagrada Familia, Catalunya Média City, the Archaeological Museum of Tarraco, the transformation of Fira de Barcelona, ​​Barcelona Airport, or the Sagrera train station." Meanwhile, the museum's president, Jaume Oliveras, said he sees it as "the fruit of the poetics of perseverance." 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 should be the artists' home," he added. One of the cornerstones of the Harquitectes and Christ & Gantenbein project is opening up the Victoria Eugenia Palace, which measures almost 15,000 square meters, to the city. That's why they've 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. It won't 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," Ricart said. "We want to extend the public space within the MNAC," he emphasized. The presentation was also attended by the Secretary of State for Culture, Jordi Martí; The Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández Almodóvar, and many of the directors of the facilities belonging to the Network of Art Museums of Catalonia. 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 constructed area will increase from 49,000 to 71,417 square meters.

The Victoria Eugenia Palace and the National Palace will be connected by a passageway that will run through the interior of the Victoria Eugenia Palace and then via an underground passageway that will connect 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 first exhibition spaces of the extension

The project is conceived as a journey between different levels. Beyond the future lobby of the Palau Victoria Eugenia, there will be a first large exhibition space. The passageway will be connected to the façade facing Plaça de les Cataratas. And at the far end of the palace, higher up, there will be a second exhibition space and the underground connection to the Palau Nacional. As for the future new exhibition halls, the renderings released this Monday show them bathed in natural light streaming through the dozens of skylights in the Palau's roof.

The ground floor of the Palau Victoria Eugènia will house the lobby, welcome area, auditorium, and cafeteria, as well as the first exhibition space. This space can be divided between a gallery for temporary exhibitions and the permanent collection, depending on the museum's needs. Between the entrance lobby and the exhibition space, next to Plaça Puig i Cadafalch, there will be an intermediate floor that will house 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. Prior to this project, in 2013, Josep Lluís Mateo proposed connecting the palaces of Alfonso XIII and the National Palace with a tunnel in his unrealized project for the Esplanade of Museums.

The planned budget for the expansion is €112.6 million, of which €104.3 million corresponds to the construction work and €8.2 million to the architects' fees. As for the schedule, the works, which will be divided into two main sections and several phases, are expected to begin during the first quarter of 2028, and the first phase of section 1, corresponding to the renovation of the Palau Victoria Eugenia, is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2029.

On the centenary of the 1929 International Exposition

The expansion of the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia) will be linked to the centenary commemoration 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. "The expansion is a new stage in the life of this museum and in the way the country explains itself through art. It is also a clear commitment to placing the role of museums and public institutions at the service of citizens' rights in the future," said Ernest Urtasun. For the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, the museum's expansion is part of Barcelona's "cultural flourishing," which also includes the expansion of the MACBA (Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona), also designed by Harquitectes and Christ & Ganbentein, and the future Carmen Thyssen Museum of Barcelona.

In strictly artistic terms, the MNAC expansion completes Joaquim Folch i Torres's 1934 museum project, which was interrupted by the Civil War. The museum's then-director, Eduard Carbonell, called for it some twenty years ago. "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," Serra said.

The future MNAC will have four main values, two of which, according to Serra, are its "radical" commitment to public service and its desire to be a museum "for the entire country." The other values ​​are the "pluralistic" nature of the project, supported by 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 museum's director stated.