The expansion of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (Macba) in the Plaça dels Àngels had to be a reality this 2023. However, the extra cost of the works due to the increase in the cost of living derived from the war in Ukraine, has once again paralyzed the project, although the consortium (governing body of the museum in which Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat, the Ministry of Culture and the Fundació Macba are represented) assure that it is a "readjustment of the calendar and the execution budget ”, but in no case is the expansion at stake, nor has any alternative location to the one that is planned been considered at the moment.
After the bitter dispute between art and health around the Misericòrdia chapel, finally destined for the future CAP of the Raval Nord (whose works have not yet begun), the Macba saw the light at the end of the tunnel in 2021 when, according to all the institutions involved, announced that it would grow in a building adjacent to the Convent dels Àngels, according to an architectural project by HArquitectes and Christ
However, the new facilities, which will redefine the physiognomy of the square, providing it with a third level with a terrace of outdoor sculptures, have once again collided with some twenty entities and residents of the Raval, who take a dim view of the fact that the center grow at the expense of a public space (900 square meters). But "the museum has to grow", they insist from the MACBA, who limit themselves to pointing out what was agreed during the last meeting of the consortium held last Thursday.
"The expansion project that was approved does not currently have the necessary financing given the cost of carrying it out" and work is currently being done with the winning team of architects to streamline costs and deadlines." The works were budgeted at eleven million euros (5.4 of the work budget, to which we had to add fees, museography, acquisition of parking spaces...) that would be equitably borne by the different consortium institutions, to which 1.5 million euros contributed by the Fundació Macba had to be subtracted.
As El País announced yesterday and has been confirmed by Macba to La Vanguardia, until the project can become a reality "the direction and management of the museum will work to study how to make the most of the current spaces" available to it. In addition to the Meier building, the Macba has La Capella (destined for exhibitions, with little activity), the Convent dels Àngels (where part of the Studies and Documentation Center is located) and the median building that adjoins the façade and closes the square dels Angels. "It is about seeing how more resources can be obtained from them, but in no case are we thinking of an alternative to the expansion," sources consulted by this newspaper clarify.
Also from the City Council, the Councilor for Culture Jordi Martí stopped the speculation by assuring that "there will be an expansion of the Macba". "We are committed" to the project, as we are to the MNAC and the Liceu, "he said. Martí admitted that the center's management has requested a period of reflection until June, after the municipal elections, to "rationalize the project and seek financing", while studying a better use of the spaces in order to get everything out of them. the juice possible to the meters available. But, he settled himself, "not as an alternative to anything."
The Gallery, the name of the new building, will rise in the adjacent space of the Convent dels Àngels, one of the most degraded corners of the square, in front of the Meier building and just in front of the 16th century Gothic façade, whose heritage elements will continue to be visible thanks to a set of ceramic work buttresses that overlap and continue the existing ones designed in their day by Lluís Clotet and Ignasi Paricio.
