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Barcelona Museums - Great Places to Visit

There's so much to see in Barcelona, from Gaudi's great buildings to the city's beaches, that it's all too easy to miss some of the world's finest cultural attractions. Barcelona may not have a museum as famous as Madrid's Prado or the Louvre in Paris, but there's an amazing variety of museums in the city. Be careful, however, which day you set aside for a little culture on your city break in Barcelona - most museums are closed on Mondays.

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya is one of Spain's great museums housing medieval, 19th and 20th century art from Catalonia. Housed in the impressive Palau Nacional at the foot of Montjuic, its Romanesque collection is reckoned to be the world's finest. There are several frescoes and Gothic works on the lives and deaths of saints - some are not for the fainthearted. It's also noted for its Modernista collection.

In the same area as the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya is Caixa Forum. Originally a factory built in the Art-Nouveau style, it has become one of Barcelona's most lively cultural centres with exhibitions devoted to artists such as Dalí, Rodin, Freud, Turner, Fragonard, Hogarth and Cartier-Bresson. It also hosts concerts, lectures and literary events.

The CosmoCaixa science museum lifted the European Museum of the Year Award in 2006 and is packed with fascinating displays for children and adults, all designed to make science interesting and comprehensible. There's fun to be had with interactive exhibits, particularly the Flooded Forest, an incredible recreation of a section of Amazonian rainforest, complete with frogs, turtles, snakes, fish and a steamy heat that is spookily realistic.

Artists who have lived and worked in Barcelona are now celebrated with their own museums, notably Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Antoni Tapies. The Museu Picasso is the number one Barcelona museum for his fans. Picasso arrived in Barcelona in 1894 when he was 14 and lived here until he was 23. He studied at the city's art college where his father was a tutor. The museum includes much of his early work housed in five medieval palaces in the Barri Gotic.

Take the funicular up Montjuic and you soon find yourself outside the Fundacio Joan Miro, a splendid purpose-built museum dedicated to the artist. Miró experimented with painting, sculpture, printing, ceramics, theatre and tapestry. Bemused visitors can learn about 'drippism' and the more sceptical may wonder in one gallery if some paintings are simply cracks in the wall. Do step outside where many of Miro's amusing sculptures are on view.

The Fundacio Antoni Tapies is in Eixample in a Domenech, a Montaner-designed building featuring a sculpture on the roof. Tapies was born in Barcelona in 1923 and is probably the greatest Spanish artist to emerge since the 1950s. Tàpies started as a surrealist painter but soon become an abstract expressionist, working in a style known as "Arte Povera". In 1953 he began working in mixed media and was one of the first to create serious art in this way, adding clay and marble dust to his paint and incorporating waste paper, string, and rags in his works.

Keeping to contemporary art, the Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA) can be found near the northern end of the Ramblas. MACBA focuses on art from 1945, with many temporary exhibitions. The huge, white building, designed by the American Richard Meier opened in 1995. While most museums in the city close on Mondays, MACBA is closed Tuesdays

There are several museums celebrating the history of the city and of Catalonia. The Museu d'Historia de la Ciutat is in the heart of the Barri Gotic. Its collection covers the city's history from Roman times in a beautiful old mansion with central courtyard, the casa Clariana-Padellas. There is a fascinating underground tour along Roman roads, houses, bathrooms, sewers and the old city walls. You can also trace the evolution of Barcelona through plans, sketches and models.

The nearby Capella de Santa Agata offers views of the Barri Gotic from the Torre del Rey Marti while the neighbouring Museu Frederic Mares, just behind the Cathedral, has a massive collection of medieval sculpture housed in an ancient palace with large courtyards and soaring ceilings.

We finish this brief tour down by the port with two intriguing exhibitions. The Maritime Museum is housed in the Drassanes, the medieval shipyards at the seaward end of the Ramblas. Barcelona was one of the great maritime powers trading across the whole Mediterranean basin. There is a copy of a 16th century Royal Galley, old maps, charts and even a virtual dive in a submarine.

In the newly renovated port area of Port Vell is the Museu d'Historia de Catalunya. This excellent museum is in a converted warehouse and it covers Catalan history. The imaginative exhibits include The Birth of a Nation; Our Sea; On the Edge of the Empire; A Steam-powered Nation; The Electric Years; and Defeat and Recovery.

Much of this will be new to visitors from outside Catalonia, so when you step back outside, you will fully appreciate why Barcelona is one of the great cities of Europe.

About the Author

Bob Cartwright writes for TravelSavvy Barcelona - independent city guide for tourists. For more information visit:
Barcelona city break travel guide
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