The centenary of the 1929 Universal Exposition is marked in red on the calendar by many. It is the date set to completely renovate Montjuïc and its surroundings, from the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) to the Fira de Barcelona venue, but also to generate new spaces and take advantage of land that had been left in no man's land. One of the pieces that has been waiting the longest is the expansion of the MNAC, which will allow it to go from having 9,000 square meters of exhibition space to 19,500 square meters, and complete the project of the great art museum of Catalonia that was conceived in 1934, the year of its birth. "It is the most accident-prone museum in the world, we are not making it, we are finishing it now," joked its director, Pepe Serra.
The architectural competition to define what the new headquarters will be like is now entering its second phase, in which five architecture studios will work on their final proposal until March 2025, with a remuneration of 30,000 euros. In their selection, four of the five finalists aroused absolute unanimity among the jury, while a fifth garnered the support of a large majority. Little more is known about the participants, as the competition has been called under the anonymity of those selected, as well as the members of the jury. The project they will develop in the coming months will have to define what the new headquarters will be like, located in the Palacio de Victòria Eugènia, to the right of the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc, but also how it will connect with the current location, in the Palacio Nacional, at the top of the mountain, where work will also be done to reorganize the space. "It will be a single museum," Serra never tires of saying.
While waiting to know the winning firm of the architectural competition, the MNAC has made an initial estimate of the budget for the new museum, which has been set at around 120 million euros. The figure, pending adjustments according to the chosen proposal, includes both the adaptation works of the Palacio de Victòria Eugènia and the Palacio Nacional and the museography. The first part will take the bulk of the investment, with more than 107 million euros, with the works in the Palacio de Victòria Eugènia being the highest item ---69 million euros---, while the design of what can be seen inside, as well as the reorganization of the content of the Palacio Nacional, will be 14 million euros.
With the two buildings, which will add up to almost 20,000 square meters, content that until now had no space can be exhibited. Romanesque, Baroque, and Gothic will remain in the National Palace, while the modern era, from Goya and Fortuny to the present day, will be concentrated downstairs, always weaving relationships between the different periods and spaces. For the first time, artists from the second half of the 20th century will be comprehensively accommodated. The collection of photography and popular arts such as comics and illustration will also be displayed.
Content also matters
That is where the director of the MNAC also wants to focus, pointing out that the evolution to make it possible has been underway for seasons in the museum, as can be seen in the programming they have designed for 2025. "Museums are changing more in the last 25 years than they have in the last 200 years. The goal now is for the museum to respond to its time and push its public service function to the limit," Serra remarks. Artists must be put at the center, the collection held must be critically rethought, questioning the canon, recovering forgotten stories, and seeking new narratives, without forgetting to collaborate with other institutions and bring art to the entire territory, not just its capital.
Under this argument, the presentation of works that the MNAC has in its collection deposited by the Francoist National Heritage Defense Service, created in 1938, stands out. Some were returned to their legitimate owners, but the origin of others is still unknown, so the museum will exhibit them to the public in the autumn of 2025 to focus on a past that still weighs heavily. Among them is Jaume Cascalls' Head of Christ. The museum has long focused on the Civil War, with new permanent rooms opened in 2021, but there is still much to learn, even more so in a world where wars are reviving with force. In next year's season, there will be a lot of drawing, with the recovery of the only Catalan and Spanish artist who worked for Allied propaganda during World War II, Mario Armengol, scheduled from May, as well as the exhibition of José Luis Rey Vila's testimony of the Civil War, known as Sim, in the autumn of 2025.
The main course will be the exhibition dedicated to Francisco de Zurbarán, bringing together for the first time the three versions of Saint Francis of Assisi according to the vision of Pope Nicholas V, distributed between the Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the MNAC, which has taken the opportunity to restore its own. Starting in mid-March 2025, the exhibition will also serve to see together for the first time in Barcelona the two versions of Still Life with Pottery, which had belonged to Francesc Cambó, who ceded one to the Museo del Prado and the other to the MNAC. A very modern artist who will be confronted with contemporary names such as Antoni Tàpies or Josep Guinovart. Eugènia Balcells' Electronic Stonehenge will also stand out next year, with her large video installation filling the Oval Room, as well as the vindication of Galí, Miró's teacher, one of the main artists of the 1929 Universal Exhibition and one of those responsible for saving the Prado paintings and taking them to the border at the end of the Civil War. At the MNAC, it is he who signs the paintings in the Dome Room, very bluish and with allegories of fine arts, science, religion, and earth, for which he spent more than half a year on a scaffold.