1929 was the year Montjuïc (and Barcelona) showed itself to the world. One hundred years later, that legacy once again sets the tempo for the mountain. The centenary of the International Exhibition has ceased to be a distant date to become a concrete horizon that orders projects, calendars, and expectations. This Monday, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) has put figures and dates to this countdown and has confirmed that the museum is entering the decisive phase of its expansion, one of the most ambitious cultural transformations associated with the renovation of Montjuïc.
With an eye on 2030, the year scheduled to inaugurate the new MNAC, the institution has detailed how a process that will begin in 2026 and will entail profound changes in the museum's operation will unfold. "The museum's agenda is already the expansion's agenda," summarized its director, Pepe Serra, four years before opening the new halls. A phrase that synthesizes the current moment: everything to come, including the programming, already revolves around the project.
The Museu Nacional is immersed in a transformation process that will lead to its expansion with a budget of 122 million. 2026 will be a transition year, prior to the start of architectural works and other museographic works that will require full dedication and will make this transformation visible. This will probably be the last exhibition program of these characteristics before the opening of the new halls in the Victòria Eugènia Pavilion.
Serra has made it clear that this is not a project of the director of the MNAC nor of the museum team nor of the curators, but rather it is a public service project for the museum and the culmination of a museum conceived almost a century ago. He has also pointed out that the MNAC must speak from where it is, which is Catalonia, and from that place look at the world.
The turning point will come in 2027, when the closure of the museum's first floor is scheduled, dedicated to modern and contemporary art. The management is confident that it can keep the ground floor open —with the Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance areas—, but admits that the priority will be to concentrate efforts on the expansion, with a moratorium that could reduce temporary exhibitions, loans, and recurring activities.Architecture with a Catalan seal and international experience
The expansion will be the work of the Catalan team of HArquitectes and the Swiss firm Christ & Gantenbein, winners of the architectural competition. It is not a new alliance: both studios already collaborated on the expansion of Macba, one of the most relevant museum interventions in recent years in Barcelona.
Christ & Gantenbein also bring a consolidated track record in highly complex museums, such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Basel or the expansion of the Swiss National Museum. The MNAC project is thus part of a line of interventions that seek to grow historical facilities without diluting their character, reinforcing the dialogue between architecture, collection, and city.
The work schedule is already laid out. The adaptation of the Victòria Eugènia Pavilion will take place between the fourth quarter of 2027 and the fourth quarter of 2029. The underground connection between the Palau Nacional and the pavilion —a key piece to articulate the new museum— is planned throughout 2028, the same year in which the adaptation of the Palau Nacional should also begin.
The partial closure of the MNAC is part of a trend shared by other major European institutions. First-rate museums such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris or the Pergamon Museum in Berlin are currently facing long periods of closure for renovations and expansions. Complex and costly processes, but necessary to adapt these facilities to new narratives, audiences, and conservation requirements.
A collection in motion
During the years of work, the MNAC will activate a strategy of international and territorial circulation of its collection. A significant part of its collection will travel to Tokyo in a large-scale international operation that, according to Serra, will generate income to help finance the expansion. The director has defended this displacement as "a good place to present our holdings," both for its international projection and for the recognition of the value of the museum's collection.
In parallel, the MNAC foresees that some emblematic works may temporarily circulate through other Catalan museums, provided that these institutions request it. A way to keep the collection alive at a time when the museum will inevitably have to reduce its exhibition presence in Barcelona.
The last great season before the works
Before fully entering this phase, 2026 will host the last major exhibition program of this cycle. A season presented this Monday by its director and which combines historical research, critical review, and contemporary creation. The exhibition dedicated to the Master of Cabestany and the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes stands out, a project of great ambition that revisits foundational myths of Catalan and European Romanesque art based on dispersed pieces and unpublished documentation.
The dialogue with contemporary art is reinforced with The Inverse Journey, by Ona Batlló, a proposal that reconnects Romanesque mural paintings with their original spaces and with the soundscape of the Pyrenees. And with Jujol, by Perejaume, a major exhibition that revisits the figure of Josep Maria Jujol from a poetic and radical perspective, within the framework of the World Capital of Architecture 2026.
Added to all this is Recovered from the enemy, an exhibition that delves into the provenance of the works deposited in the MNAC by the Francoist SDPAN and that consolidates a line of work focused on the Civil War, looting, and the responsibility of public museums.
An uncomfortable shadow: Sixena
This horizon of renewal coexists, however, with an uncomfortable shadow: the decision of the Supreme Court to force the MNAC to return the Sixena mural paintings to their original location, in Huesca. A resolution adopted despite numerous technical reports warning that the transfer could cause serious and irreparable damage to extremely fragile works.
Serra indicated in the meeting with the media that the museum wants to comply with the ruling on the Sixena works, and that it has "no animosity or desire to retain" the pieces. However, he also showed great displeasure: "If Rosalía's concert is a danger, what exactly is sawing the piece into 74 pieces?"
Beyond the Sixena case, the MNAC begins in 2026 a decisive stage in which the time of the work and the time of the narrative must advance in parallel to finally culminate the museum that was imagined almost a century ago.