Elisava makes the leap to Madrid with the opening of a university campus specialized in entrepreneurship and creative industries.
The Barcelona faculty will locate the classrooms in Acid House Madrid, a space promoted by the Catalan design studio Folch Studio. Both entities have been collaborating in Barcelona for years and have now decided to strengthen their alliance in Madrid, with the idea of taking it to other cities, such as Malaga, Valencia or Bilbao, as long as the project prospers in the Spanish capital.
Jointly, Elisava and Acid House have spent 1.5 million on the campus, which will open its doors in the Legazpi neighborhood, a few meters from the Matadero Contemporary Creation Center.
“We will start classes at the end of September and, for now, we are going to offer four master's degrees with our own qualifications on strategic design, research, innovation and brands,” says Javier Peña, general director of the Barcelona faculty, which has been part of the UVic since the year 2020.
In the first academic year, Elisava hopes to train around thirty students, with the idea of expanding this number with new master's degrees and regulated university degrees.
“After analyzing different national and international cities, we have concluded that there is a need to promote the creative industry in Madrid and connect it with that of Barcelona,” comments the director of the university, which was founded 63 years ago as a design school.
In Barcelona, Elisava and Acid House are also working on opening a similar campus in the Palo Alto complex, in the Poblenou neighborhood, but the project is on hold because it is waiting to receive permits from the City Council. The university has also encountered difficulties in its move to the old Mercedes factory, located in the Sant Andreu district. “We had reached an agreement with the promoters but we have stopped operations due to urban, economic and temporal obstacles. The agreed conditions were not met,” says the director, who explains that Elisava is already looking for other locations in Barcelona. The Rambla campus has become too small.
In 2023, this university trained more than 2,000 students in design and engineering studies. The turnover was 17 million euros, a growth of 8% that it plans to maintain this year. The university, controlled by a foundation, employs 187 people and has a network of more than 500 collaborating professors.
