The pincipal objective of the renovation of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies was to bring the structure in line with new safety and evacuation regulations, while also improving the overall complex. This involves opening the entire historical building to the public, with new exhibition, archive and educational areas, and concentrating the administrative areas in a new three storey pavilion at the far end of the plot; this exits onto the city block’s interior courtyard.

However, the new Fundació Antoni Tàpies seeks above all to contribute to a new generation of museums understood as centres of cultural production by offering a range of spaces suitable for diverse artistic practices; it also hopes to create thermodynamic balance and enhance of the existing building. Another of the goals of this new generation of museum is to intensify the experience of the visitor, who is given an overview of the complex programmatic network that sustains the production of culture, as well as the Modernista (Art Nouveau) building itself, as an actual part of the exhibition system.

The previous dialogue established between the original building of the Modernista architect Lluís Domèneh i Montaner (1881-1884) and the intervention of Roser Amadó and Lluís Domènech (1987-1990)—in particular through the installation of the Tàpies work on the roof (Cloud and chair, 1990)—is now broadened by the addition of another piece by the artist (Sock, 2010) and a landscaped roof. This opens the museum up to new dialogues with the courtyard of Cerdà’s Eixample block.

In environmental terms, the extension involves a substantial improvement to the natural lighting of the original building and of the formal aspect of the whole. Furthermore, the intervention has been contained to a single volume in order to reduce the number of energy interchanges.




Program: Museum
Built Area: 4.150 sqm
Budget: 8.300.000 €
Status: Built



Client: Fundació Antoni Tàpies

Architecture: Ábalos + Sentkiewicz arquitectos

Project director: Iñaki Ábalos

Project team:
Víctor Garzón (coordination)
Haizea Aguirre, Elena Cuerda, Ismael Martín
Alfonso Miguel, Renata Sentkiewicz

Structural Engineer: BOMA (Agustí Obiol, Javier Asensio)

M/E: AB2, FLUIDSA (climate control), PREFIRE (fire protection)

Quality Surveyor: CASOBI (Eduard Casanovas)

Lighting: Spaillum (Josep Mª Civit)

Furnishings: Mairea

Construction: SAPIC

Graphic Design: Mario Eskenazi

Photography: José Hevia