The promoters of the unborn Barcelona Hermitage museum are behind the project to build an immersive museum, The Factory Museum, in the old Godó i Trias de l'Hospitalet factory, located near the Fira. This project is completely independent of the one that orbited around the Russian museum, already discarded.
The architectural project would be carried out by the prestigious RCR Arquitectes studio, winner of a Pritzker Prize. The City Council has agreed today to open a public bidding process.
Sources familiar with the project point out that the decision to invest in l'Hospitalet and not in Barcelona cannot be interpreted as a dispute between municipalities, but as a commitment to also give a cultural dimension to metropolitan Barcelona. This rules out the possibility that the project ends up in some of the Spanish cities that had shown interest in hosting it, after the confrontation between the promoters and the Barcelona City Council.
In any case, as will be remembered, the site on which the Hermitage was to be built, on land in the port of Barcelona, is bogged down in a judicial conflict that is presumed to be long.
The same sources point out that the new project, still to be defined, would enhance l'Hospitalet's commitment to becoming a cultural center, already undertaken by attracting some art galleries and, above all, artists who have opened their studios in the second city of Catalonia.
The Godó i Trias factory is a modernist building protected as a cultural asset of local interest, with a constructed area of 7,257 square metres.
According to the promoters of The Factory Museum, the museum "of physical and digital art, will host immersive historical and contemporary exhibitions, as well as a research center and spaces for artists."
The proposal, which by submitting to public tender can enter into competition with other potential projects, would involve an investment of 50 million euros.
