Hermitage Museum Barcelona
Year
2016
Location
Plaça de la rosa dels vents - barcelona
Typology
Area
16.590
Services
A public architecture that connects land and water, memory and future, in dialogue with the city and the horizon.
The Brief
The project for the Hermitage Museum in Barcelona is located in the port area, in a privileged location due to its direct relationship with the sea, the Montjuïc mountain, and the views towards the city. The proposal presents a new building with the vocation of an “urban palace,” which inherits the monumentality and classical spirit of the Hermitage of St. Petersburg, reinterpreting them in a contemporary key.
The museum is conceived as an architecture of civic and timeless character, which articulates routes, connects unevenness, and opens generously to the public space. Its design responds to the topographical complexity of the place and the desire to create a meeting point between art, city, and landscape.
Project Scope
“The building is organized through a tripartite composition: the exhibition halls are arranged on the lateral flanks, while a large central space acts as an axis of relationship and visual articulation. This luminous void allows for long perspectives and routes oriented towards natural light, inviting the visitor to move between the works and the environment.”
The architecture is defined by its rhythmic structure of pillars and entablatures, reinterpreting the classical tradition in a contemporary language. Its facade, understood as a “skin” —in the words of Paul Valéry—, adapts its thickness and permeability according to the needs of each space: total darkness for the large halls, filtered light in the central space, deep shadow in arcades and galleries.
The building establishes a constant dialogue with the port, offering intermediate spaces for access, rest, and contemplation that reinforce its public dimension. The proposed materials—stone with an intense texture and high durability—confer unity, robustness, and a direct sensory relationship with the place.
The project, rigorous in its expression and sustainable in its construction and maintenance, aspires to permanence. It reinterprets the heritage of the original Hermitage from a contemporary vision: an architecture that supports the building on the land, elevates it, and delivers it to the sky.”
Between the city and the sea, the museum stands as a contemporary palace: structure, light, and matter in equilibrium, where architecture becomes art and art becomes landscape.
