Presentation

The Museu del Disseny de Barcelona conserves huge holdings – more than 70,000 objects – the result of merging the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts, the Museum of Ceramics, the Museum of Textile and Clothing and the Graphic Arts Cabinet.
The museumis scheduled to open its doors to the public in spring 2014

Formerly housed at different sites and following different trajectories, the four collections – the cornerstone of the Museum – have now been brought together in a permanent home in a new building designed by MBM architects in Plaça de les Glòries. The building comprises two parts: an underground section made possible by the change in level caused by the reorganisation of the square; and a section at street level. It is in this, second, detached building that the permanent exhibitions will be housed, on four floors. The new premises provide the finest conditions for the conservation, restoration and exhibition of the Museum’s heritage.

The Museu de les Arts Decoratives , whose heritage formed the basis for the establishment of the other museums as it grew, opened in 1932 in the Palau de Pedralbes. Its collections, unlike those of many other museums, royal and sumptuary in origin, are largely the result of donations from Barcelona collectors, businesses and artists. Since 1994, these holdings have included a collection devoted to industrial design. Constantly expanding, this collection is outstanding, in terms of both the number of objects and the designers represented in it.
 
The design museum, organised around the theme “from the decorative arts to design”, is dedicated to the culture of the object, focusing on pieces that are often from the everyday, their design, manufacturing process, use and distribution, aesthetic and/or functional obsolescence and their transformation into museum pieces, all from a 21st-century perspective.

A new museography, one based on research and the generation and dissemination of knowledge about art and design, both past and present, and on experimentation. The museum also adopts a forward-looking stance that encourages new and diverse gazes at its rich collections, which form part of the city’s heritage.

Exhibitions, lectures, workshops, activities, education services, publications, courses, etc., as well as an online presence that includes both the collections and the Documentation Centre (which contains more than 20,000 documents, including both books and archives devoted to different themes), will also help to encourage richer, more plural interpretations of design and to foster greater understanding of its influence on our lives.