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.

The 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.

Eduard Carbonell, professor of art history and former director of the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), died on Sunday at the age of 79, according to Vilaweb and sources at the MNAC confirmed to ARA. Carbonell was the Director General of Cultural Heritage for the Catalan government between 1988 and 1994 and was considered a leading figure among Catalan museologists. Also in the institutional arena, he participated in the creation of the 1990 Museums Law (17/1990), the Library System Law (1993), and the Cultural Heritage Law (1993). In 2020, Carbonell received the Cross of Sant Jordi. Regarding his work at the MNAC, he led the reopening of the museum, reuniting all the collections that had been dispersed during the Civil War, from Romanesque to the early avant-garde movements. "Both the president, on behalf of the board of trustees, and the entire museum are deeply saddened by the death of Eduard Carbonell," says MNAC director Pepe Serra.

The artist Helios Gómez defined himself as Sevillian, Catalan and, above all, a gypsy. Despite all the repression he suffered, he always remained faithful to his ideas. Gómez was always on the side of the people, and now his personal collection has become public, thanks to the donation that his son Gabriel has made to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. The donation includes six paintings, twenty-seven drawings and an illustrated book. The museum has also purchased the three paintings that Gabriel Gómez had deposited in the museum and which can be seen in the modern art rooms: Evacuation, Andalusian sour and Airborne pain (parachute with the eye). "This donation changes the collection, and the museum becomes the reference centre for Helios Gómez, an absolutely key artist in the story of the avant-garde in Catalonia and Spain," says the museum's director, Pepe Serra. "I don't know if there is another artist as relevant in this condition of avant-garde, revolutionary, of the idea of art and conflict," he stresses. "My father showed the people with their hardships, the tortured, murdered people... A part that is normally hidden in art," says Gabriel Gómez, who has been promoting his father's work for three decades.