Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya Audio Guide

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

   Welcome to the National Art Museum of Catalonia, which sits on the hill of Montjuïc in Barcelona. You are standing at the Palau Nacional, a monumental palace that was built as the main venue of the 1929 International Exposition. Before you even step inside, the building does a lot of the talking. There is a grand outdoor staircase, a large cascade of water in front of it, and big, ceremonial halls waiting behind the doors. The palace now houses a collection that traces the artistic history of Catalonia, from Romanesque art to modern art. In this guide we will look at how the palace came to be, how a museum eventually moved into it, and which masterpieces and fragments of medieval Catalonia you can meet inside. We will also look at the neighborhood of exhibition buildings around it. If you are arriving by public transport, the metro stop at Espanya, on lines one and three, is the one to use. If you come by car, there is a paid municipal car park next to the museum. Now, let's start where the story starts: with a world's fair.

2. 02

   A Palace Built for a World's Fair

   With the 1929 exhibition, Barcelona claimed the mountain of Montjuïc and turned it, over time, into a place of leisure and culture for everyone. The Palau Nacional was the star of that transformation. The ceremony to lay its foundation stone was held on the thirtieth of June, 1926. The project was the work of the architects Eugenio Cendoya, Enric Catà and Pere Domènech i Roura, and photographs from 1928 show the main front still taking shape. When the Exposition opened, King Alfonso the Thirteenth inaugurated it from the balcony of the Throne Room. And the fair had its own bit of spectacle in the sky. On the sixteenth of May, 1929, the Graf Zeppelin flew past Barcelona during the International Exposition. That is why the building feels the way it does. It was designed to impress visitors from far away, which explains the scale of the staircase, the cascade and the great halls. Look up at the facade as you climb, and imagine the crowds of 1929 doing the same.

3. 03

   From Palace to Museum

   A palace built for a fair does not automatically become a museum, and this one took its time. The Museu d'Art de Catalunya was founded in 1934, and it was noted for its collection of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque art. In 1942 the Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque collections were installed in the Palau. The Museum of Modern Art, founded in 1945, took a different home. Its nineteenth and twentieth century collections were housed from 1945 to 2004 in the Arsenal building in the Parc de la Ciutadella. The pieces came together later. The museum as you see it today was formed in 1990 by the Catalan Museum Law. A major restoration in the 1990s was spurred by the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, although the palace was ultimately not used to welcome the athletes. The second and last phase of works began for the definitive installation of all the collections. Architectural and museographic work was led by Gae Aulenti and Josep Benedito. In 2004 the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya officially opened as one institution under this roof. That explains why the museum feels like a long conversation across centuries, held in a single building.

4. 04

   Romanesque Treasures and Gothic Masters

   The museum's reputation rests on its medieval collections. Among the Romanesque highlights are architectural fragments such as capitals, stone carvings, and pieces from the cloister of San Pere de les Puelles in Barcelona, which date from the twelfth century. There is also a group of paintings from the Chapter House at Sigena, which is worth looking for as you move through the Romanesque galleries. Then comes the Gothic period. Jaume Huguet was the great Catalan painter of the second half of the fifteenth century. After a period in Valencia, he made his home definitively in Barcelona, establishing his dominance and setting up a school there. The museum holds a generous selection of his works. It also shows artists active in the same period, such as Pere Garcia de Benavarri, who worked in both Aragon and Catalonia and created another successful formula based on similar cultural components. Beyond the paintings, the museum also includes the Numismatic Collection of Catalonia, with coins and medals, and the General Library of Art History. A visit here can be as much about reading the story of a country as about admiring images.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you leave, step out onto the terrace. From there you can enjoy one of the most striking panoramas of Barcelona, and it is a good place to take in the city that the 1929 fair helped shape. The hill around the museum is full of reminders of that fair. Many of the buildings erected for the 1929 International Exhibition remain, including the pavilions of the Barcelona Trade Fair, the Poble Espanyol, and the Teatre Grec, a Greek amphitheatre built in a disused quarry. The Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, refurbished for the 1992 Games, is part of the same area. Together they form one of the most attractive cultural, commercial and leisure centres in the city. If the lobby is your next stop, look for the tactile model of the Palau Nacional. It lets you appreciate the uniqueness of the architecture through touch. And if you have time, walk back through the Romanesque galleries once more. Things look different the second time around.