<![CDATA[Ara in English - Thyssen Museum]]> 10 <![CDATA[Cultural policy]]> It's not easy to explain the sadness and anger with which I received the news a few months ago that the Thyssen Museum in Sant Feliu de Guíxols was going to Barcelona. Any reader of this column knows how much I love the painting. I assumed they would pave the entire area surrounding the monastery with a hard floor, like that of a department store, which burns in summer and slips when it rains; that they would cover the old-fashioned sandstone and turn such a noble and characteristic part of my city into another hard square. Nothing made me want the pavement to bury Roman remains: there was a higher purpose. I was even willing to applaud the project of a Madrid architectural firm to fill the space where the monastery cloister should be with a concrete sarcophagus that would block out the spiritual radiation from the very heart of our history. I admit it, I was willing to completely depersonalize the Porta Ferrada—a monument so emblematic that it gives its name to a festival that brings the best music in the world here every summer.

]]> <![CDATA[Gifts from museums around the world are made in Barcelona]]>

MNAC, Picasso, Thyssen, Reina Sofía, Guggenheim, Tate, MoMA, Van Gogh, Munch… All these museums have in common that the gifts they sell are designed in Barcelona. With a history spanning more than 30 years, Ming Productions is the company that designs many of the notebooks, magnets, stuffed animals, and mugs found in their stores. With factories in Badalona, ​​Montgat, and Dallas (United States), the company is the result of all the ideas that Benjamín Villa, its CEO and founder, could have.

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