Carmen Thyssen fulfills a dream in her city, filling the old Comedia cinema with art

Baroness Thyssen knew the old Comedia cinema, located on the chamfer between Paseo de Gràcia and Gran Via. She had visited it when she was little and remembers seeing films starring her first husband, Lex Barker, known for his role as Tarzan. Many years have passed since then, the cinema even closed its doors, and Carmen Cervera has finally wanted to settle in her hometown reviving the historic building through her private art collection. "The museum will be full of wonderful works. I am very happy to contribute to this being carried out," she declared at the presentation of the future Carmen Thyssen Barcelona Museum, a multitudinous launch that was held this Thursday in the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Council.

After months of negotiations with the building's owners, the Pla and Planàs families, the new cultural facility has started with the forecast of opening its doors by 2027. The baroness, excited to share a street with Gaudí, will not be alone in this project and will launch the museum hand in hand with the Stoneweg fund, also responsible in the city for the rebirth of the Palau Martorell or the creation of the America's Cup interpretation center, as well as the controversial initiative to bring the Russian Hermitage. The museum will be channeled through the Arte y Legado Barcelona Foundation, which is chaired by the CEO and co-founder of Stoneweg, Jaume Sabater, and in which Cervera herself, as well as her daughter Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Cervera, who was present at the event, are members.

It is estimated that the investment for the Carmen Thyssen Barcelona Museum, which will be completely private, will be around 100 million euros, a figure that includes both the purchase of the property and the extensive renovation that will have to be undertaken inside. Likewise, Stoneweg has closed a rental agreement for the baroness's collection. According to the promoters, the forecast is to submit the license in mid-2025, between late April and early May, with the aim of starting works at the end of the year. At a minimum, the works will last for a year. The space will be conceived by a Catalan and an international architecture studio. No competition will be called, but rather the firms that will carry out the project will be contacted directly.

Catalan art from the 19th and 20th centuries will be the central axis of the facility. "In my heart is Catalan," declared Cervera, who has Catalan grandparents, a Catalan father, and a mother from Madrid, born in the city and educated in schools such as the Lycée Français and Lestonnac. There will be a permanent collection, but temporary exhibitions will also be organized, as happens in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid or the Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, venues that will collaborate to nourish the new space, as well as working with the one in Sant Feliu de Guíxols. "Since I was little, I have grown up surrounded by art. My mother took me to museums and my father painted as a hobby. Over the years, without knowing how, I have become a serious collector," she said, quickly adding that everything she has collected "is always and will be there for the public to see."

"It will be a very 21st-century museum," Cervera remarked, where classical, modern, and contemporary artists will invade the Palau Marcet, one of the few urban palaces preserved in the Eixample that was declared a Cultural Asset of Local Interest in 2000. Ramon Casas, with his well-known Interior al aire lliure (1892), Santiago Rusiñol, or Eliseu Meifrén will be some of the new tenants. But exhibitions of decorative arts, fashion, and jewelry will also be organized, and, as could not be otherwise, there will be immersive spaces. With a total area of 9,000 square meters, the offer will be completed with a shop and a gastronomic space. It remains to be seen how the future of the two adjoining shops, Guess and Massimo Dutti, will be resolved.

"A historic leap in scale"

For the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, the future museum is not only a dream come true for Cervera but also for the city itself. "It is another victory for culture," he stressed, recalling that, with the closure of the Comedia at the beginning of the year, the council set itself the goal of maintaining cultural activity in the building, located on an artery of the city already widely sold to luxury brands.

Collboni has fitted the Carmen Thyssen Barcelona Museum into the "cultural spring" that the city is experiencing, with other initiatives underway such as the expansion of the Macba, with the forecast of starting works in early 2025, and that of the MNAC, with the architecture competition already facing its final phase. "It is a historic leap in scale," he assured, without forgetting to thank the "cultural persistence" of Sabater and Stoneweg.