Disseny Hub – Design Museum of Barcelona
A design centre for tomorrow’s Barcelona
With spectacular sustainable architecture, the new design centre is a key element in the new configuration of Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes. Inaugurated in 2014, the Design Museum, located in a highly original contemporary building that was expressly created for it, Disseny Hub, brings together collections from various museums that had previously been dispersed around the city.
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Why visit the Design Museum of Barcelona?
The Design Museum of Barcelona integrates in a common space FAD (Foment de les Arts i el Disseny) and the BCD (Barcelona Design Centre) and groups the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts and of the Museum of Ceramics, which were previously on display at the Royal Palace of Pedralbes, from the Graphic Arts Cabinet, previously at Poble Espanyol, and from the Textile and Clothing Museum, which was located in the Palau del Marquès de Llió, on Carrer de Montcada and is now home to the Museum of World Cultures. It is also home to the Clot-Josep Benet Library.
The building, designed by the MBM (Martorell & Bohigas & Mackay) group of architects, is conceived as a transitional space between the districts of Clot and Poblenou and at the same time as an essential element, along with the Torre Glòries and the revamped Encants Market, of the new configuration of the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes as a cultural and social space for the city.
Disseny Hub was built from 2008 to 2013 on a semi-underground longitudinal base from which the main volume emerges. It is distributed into five floors with different uses such as exhibition halls, offices, workshops, multipurpose halls, a library, an auditorium and a cafeteria. Much of its 29,000 m² surface area is for green areas and exterior public spaces, which feature the light and sound installation undertaken by David Torrents, in which you can use your voice to activate a graphic design undertaken with LEDs on the ground of the square adjacent to the building.
How do you get to the Design Museum?
You can get to the Design Museum by going down to the Glòries stop on the Red Route of Barcelona Bus Turístic, on Carrer de Zamora, and then taking Avinguda Meridiana on the right.
For the most curious of you
- Did you know? The Disseny Hub building is popularly known as ‘the stapler’ because of its peculiar design.
- Local’s tip: The Design Museum organises numerous activities and exhibitions, which you can consult on the programme on its website.
- A must: For lovers of design and those who want to discover one of the zones that has received the most architectural attention since the Olympic Games and is set to become a cultural, social and transport centre of tomorrow’s Barcelona.