The Julio Muñoz Ramonet legacy buildings, located on Carrer Muntaner, will finally become a unique centre dedicated to culture, art and science. The Board of Trustees of the Julio Muñoz Ramonet Foundation has unanimously approved the functional plan presented by Barcelona City Council to convert these buildings into a multidisciplinary, new generation facility, with a diverse programme aimed at different types of public moved by culture, art and science.
The City Council has earmarked an initial €1.8 million to launch this project, with the prospect of obtaining other sources of funding in the upcoming years. Once the functional plan has been approved, an architectural competition will be held to select the project’s drafting team, a procedure that will take at least nine months.
The plan to be developed envisages the creation of a facility on a neighbourhood scale with vicinity uses. It will also have a city scale as a unique facility. And finally, it is intended to give it an international scale, as a centre of reference that fuses the heritage value and collecting of the 20th century with the artistic and scientific creation of the 21st century. In this context, the Deputy Mayor for Culture, Education, Science and Community, Joan Subirats, hopes that Muñoz Ramonet‘s legacy “will become one of the central points of reference in Southern Europe for public art and science facilities”.
Among the objectives of the new facility we find the aim to conserve and interpret the significance of Julio Muñoz Ramonet‘s legacy, as well as to organize a programme of cultural activities aimed at a wide public, to offer a range of leisure activities aimed at the neighbourhood and to facilitate reflection on art and science in the 21st century. Thus, the new facility will be a meeting point for all those initiatives promoted by the city in the field of art and science, while at the same time it will be able to become a nucleus for generating new projects. In addition, in line with the experience of the city’s creation factories, part of the buildings of the Muñoz Ramonet legacy will be used as temporary residences for artists, local scientists and scientists from other countries or cities.
Two buildings and a garden
The legacy that the Barcelona businessman Julio Muñoz Ramonet left to the city of Barcelona includes two buildings and the gardens of the estate located at Carrer Muntaner 280-292 and Carrer Avenir 26-28. Together, the buildings cover a surface area of 4,131 square metres and are listed as a property with elements of interest. Both buildings, and a porter’s lodge which is also located on the estate, are the work of the architect Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia. As for the historic garden, it covers an area of 3,568 square metres and is the work of the landscape architect Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier. The legacy also includes an extensive art collection made up of numerous paintings, sculptures, tapestries and decorative art objects.
The new facility was created with the mission of highlighting and transmitting this legacy from different perspectives and at the same time generating knowledge and critical debate on art, culture and science. The spaces will include exhibition areas, research areas, spaces for the conservation of the collections, spaces for creation, and spaces for generating neighbourhood activities, among others. The centre will be open to the public, it will be a space for cultural and leisure activities, but also a nucleus for reflection and for disseminating art and the new paradigms of knowledge.