One must touch science. It was with this premise that the Museu de la Ciència of the "la Caixa" Foundation was born in 1981, the first interactive Science Museum in Spain. And this goal continues to be valid with the remodelling that took place at CosmoCaixa, and which was inaugurated in 2004.
With an area four times larger than the first, the CosmoCaixa Science Museum is divided into several areas to spread scientific knowledge through experimentation. For example, the geological wall shows several geological structures; the sala de la material (matter room) offers a tour from the Big Bang to the present time; the children's rooms are home to educational and recreational spaces such as the Planetari Bombolla (Bubble Planetarium), the Flash and Click room or the Touch! touch! room.
The CosmoCaixa even exactly replicates a section of a flooded Amazonian forest of more than 1,000 m². You can see the flooded section as well as terra firma, and the underground section, with the tropical rain included.
The CosmoCaixa is one of the most modern science museums in the world. Even so, it remains true to its origins. And it retains part of the modernist building where the first Museum was located: an old asylum for the blind by the architect Josep Domènech i Estapà built in 1904 at the foot of Tibidabo mountain.
Right next to Vic Cathedral, the Episcopal Museum is a reference point for medieval Catalan art and exhibits masterpieces of painting and sculpture from the Romanesque to the Gothic (between the 12th and 15th centuries). The centre, with a collection of more than 29,000 pieces, specialises in liturgical art.
The large Romanesque collection allows one to follow the precise stylistic and iconographic evolution of the Catalan Romanesque. One of the star exhibits in the Museum is the sculpture group of the Descent from the Cross from Erill la Vall. Discovered on an expedition by the Institute of Catalan Studies to Vall de Boí in 1907, this work of the Master of Erill is considered to be one of the most important sculptural groups of the 12th-century Romanesque in Europe.
Just as notable is the Baldachin from the parish church of Ribes, one of the masterpieces the Museum holds. Other items to consider are the altar frontal from Sant Andreu de Sagàs, the frontal from Sant Pere de Ripoll and the Mother of God from Santa Maria de Lluçà.
Aside from its collection, the Museum is also noted for its modern and innovative museum project. For this, in 2001 it was awarded the National Prize for Cultural Heritage for its contribution to the dissemination of medieval Catalan art.
The group comprising the Theatre-Museum with the dome and the Torre Galatea (with its façade decorated with manequins, eggs and loaves of crusty bread) is the most emblematic icon of Figueres’ urban landscape.The building itself is considered to be the world's largest surrealist object. But, at the same time, in its interior it houses many masterpieces by Salvador Dalí.
The Theatre-Museum, built on the remains of the former Figueres Theatre, was designed and planned by Dalí himself as his great personal project. Its collection of paintings enables the visitor to go on an artistic tour, starting with the painter’s early work (The Smiling Venus and Port Alguer). Besides this and most importantly, the Museum covers the explosion of surrealism with emblematic works such as the Spectre of Sex-Appeal, Leda Atomica, The Basket of Bread and Galatea of the Spheres.
Also of particular interest is a set of works that Dalí created specifically for his own Museum, such as the Mae West Room, the Wind Palace gallery, the Rainy Cadillac and the painting Gala Nude Watching the Sea which at 18 metres distance appears as President Lincoln.
In 1988 the Loggias Room exhibition area was added, showing the later work of Salvador Dalí, based on scientific experimentation and the study of classical painting.
The Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres together with the Castell Gala Dalí de Púbol and the Casa-Museu Salvador Dalí in Portlligat, make up the Dalí triangle of Empordà which enables visitors to immerse themselves in the life and work of one of Catalonia’s most international painters.
The Pau Casals Museum is one of the most significant testimonies of the legacy of Pau Casals, one of the most universal Catalan musicians, who revolutionised the world through innovation in playing the cello.
The building it occupies is the Vil·la Casals, which the musician had built in 1910, on the seafront in Sant Salvador, El Vendrell. Originally designed as a summer house, it was renovated in the noucentista-style, along with the Music Room, the garden and the viewpoint. Casals lived there until 1939, when he had to go into exile and never returned.
In 1972, the musician and his wife, Marta Montañez, created the Fundació Pau Casals to conserve the heritage contained in their house in Sant Salvador. After his death, La Sala del Sentiment, La Sala de Concerts and La Sala del Vigatà were opened to the public and in 1976 the house was opened as a museum.
In the current museum, opened in 2001, the visitor can admire various sculptures, paintings, musical instruments, photographs, autographs, pieces of furniture and other personal belongings of the musician, in addition to participating in various activities aimed at the promotion and dissemination of music.
In the middle of Montjuïc, in Barcelona, under the shade of the trees, the white volumes of the Fundació Joan Miró do not go unnoticed. In its interior, it holds more than 14,000 pieces by the surrealist painter, including paintings, sculptures, ceramics and tapestries. One of the most important aspects of the Fundació is that it preserves nearly all Joan Miró’s preparatory sketches, with more than 8,000 drawings, invaluable material for understanding the work of the artist.
The collection was originally created with a donation from Joan Miró himself and has since grown with donations from family, friends and collectors.
Through the Foundation’s collection, you can take a journey through the artistic life of Miró. Starting with his early paintings with their clear influence of Impressionism, Fauvism and French Cubism (Chapel of Sant Joan d'Horta and Portrait of a Young Girl). Progressing on to his fully surrealist phase (The Bottle of Wine) and his well-known collages (Homage to Prats). And ending with his works on the Civil War (Man and Woman in Front of a Pile of Excrement) and his paintings of the constellations.
But the museum is not only notable for the work it houses but also for its architectural and museological concepts. Miró wanted to open a foundation that would look to the future, that would not become a temple of collectors' objects but rather a place of discovery and debate. And with this objective, he asked the architect Josep Lluís Sert to construct a building with its own personality. The result is a piece of architecture that serves as the perfect showcase for the work of the artist.
At 6,000 years old, the Gava Prehistoric Mines is the oldest mining area with galleries in Europe. The mines were dedicated to the extraction of variscite (or cal·laïta in Catalan), a semiprecious mineral used to make jewelry.
Apart from the complex mining network, the site is known for archaeological remains that have been found there, which reflect the socioeconomic and cultural context of the Neolithic era in the Iberian Peninsula. Stone, bone and wood tools (metals were still unkown at that time), ceramic fragments and remnants of building materials are examples of these Neolithic remains.
One of the most outstanding objects is the Venus of Gavà, an anthropomorphic figure made of black ceramic. It is an incomplete piece and broken into several fragments, from which one can make out a female form, featuring a proportional and symmetrical structure, sun-shaped eyes and the upper limbs resting on a prominent belly. Venus de Gavà could be the image of a goddess of fertility and is one of the few religious Neolithic representations in existence in the Peninsula.
The artistic demonstrations (Venus and the jewelry) and the complexity of the mines show that the inhabitants of the area were an advanced society with strong religious beliefs.
When the paleontologist Miquel Crusafont died, his children gave their father’s fossil collection to the Provincial Institute of Palaeontology, with the condition that it would not leave Sabadell.
This Institute later became the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (Catalan Institute of Palaeontology Miquel Crusafont) and today it is a reference centre for the research, conservation and promotion of palaeontology in Catalonia (the science that studies living organisms of the past through fossils). Since its creation, the collection has increased to 200,000 registered fossils, obtained from different sites, making it one of the most important in Europe.
Among the best-known finds held in the ICP are Jordi and Montse (hispanopithecus laietanus) and Pau (pierolapithecus catalaunicus). They are all primates dating back more than 12 million years and have enabled us to explain more clearly the period between hominids and their primate ancestors.
Since 2010, the museum has become the main outreach area of the ICP. Through interactive tours, the visitor learns about the palaeontology research process, discovers what a laboratory for the restoration of fossils is like, sees fossils in 3D and the recreation of landscapes 66 million years old, when the Pyrenees of the present day was an area inhabited by dinosaurs.
