Swiss architects Emanuel Christ (Basel, 1970) and Christoph Gantenbein (St. Gallen, 1971) trained at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) and began collaborating shortly after graduating. They are known for their innovative spirit, and in Catalonia for being the architects, along with the firm Harquitectes, of the extensions to the MACBA and the MNAC. Christ & Gantenbein is a large firm with around one hundred architects and numerous projects in Switzerland, France, Germany, China, Norway, and Mexico. They haven't ruled out maintaining an office in Barcelona once the MACBA and MNAC projects are completed. "Barcelona is a great European city. We are very excited and grateful to have the opportunity to work here," they say.

Studios Harquitectes and Christ & Gantenbein have won the competition for the MACBA extension with a proposal called Galeria, an open-plan building with an urban vocation, as was made public this afternoon. The jury, made up of 21 representatives from Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat, the Ministry of Culture, the Macba Foundation, the museum itself and the Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya, selected this project for its urban qualities in the context of the Raval district, giving a new response to the 1980 plan by Lluís Clotet and Oscar Tusquets, From the Liceu to the Seminary, transforming the Chapel into "a central element that articulates the public passage on the ground floor of the complex". This will translate into the fact that the Chapel, in parallel to its exhibition use, will become a main entrance to MACBA, like the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, and the transept will open onto the surrounding squares, Plaça dels Àngels and Plaça de les Caramelles, during the museum's opening hours. "It will be the museum's main space," says the project brief.