The Barcelona Museum

Friday, 18 August 2006

Club founder Joan Gamper first had the idea of setting up a Barca museum in the 1920s, but for a number of reasons, it was not until 1984 when President Josep Lluis Nuñez was in charge of the club that his vision came to fruition. Once again the club showed themselves to be pioneers in the footballing world and with subsequent enlargements in 1987,1994 and 1998, the museum now covers 3,500 square metres.

Year after year the museum has increased its number of visitors and become an ever more important tool for spreading the name of the club far and wide. Not only is it the best footballing museum in the world, it is also the most popular museum of any kind in Catalonia, regularly receiving more than 1,160,000 visitors a year, and is a reference point for many other such museums around the world.
The Barcelona football club museum

In 2000, the ex president Gaspart helped ensure that the museum would be named after the man who was the main driving force behind its creation, ex president Nuñez.
A trip to the museum includes a tour of the stadium itself and features four main areas:

· The History Museum: which covers the club's more than a century long story through the many trophies won, photographic archives, sporting material, audiovisual shows and a vast number of items to stir the fans' emotions.

· The Art Gallery: with works by some of the most prestigious artists of the nation, coming from the club's own art shows and gifts. Dalí, Miró, Tàpies, Segrelles and Subirachs are among the artists featured.

. Col·lecció Futbolart - Pablo Ornaque: Undoubtedly one of the best private collections of footballing memorabilia, this exhibition covers the history of football from its origins until the present day and is permanently on loan to the museum.

· Temporary exhibitions: are regularly organised and have included such prestigious shows as that dedicated to the painter Josep Segrelles and a history of poster art.

The FC Barcelona Centre for Documentation and Studies

The FC Barcelona Centre for Documentation and Studies, located on the second floor of the Club Museum, is devoted to the history of the Club. It is divided into four sections: a newspaper and periodicals section, a library, historic archives and a photographic archive. The cultural heritage contained on these shelves is extraordinary and includes the original Statutes of 1911 signed by Joan Gamper himself.

The Centre for Documentation and Studies was inaugurated on 20th October 1994, comes under the control of the Clubs Communications Dept. and is funded by the FC Barcelona Foundation. Use of the Centre is free to all and it is an essential source for journalists and fans who wish to research the history of the Club.

Since January 2006, the Centre for Documentation and Studies has embarked on an ambitious project to digitalise the catalogue and research new material. In addition, the Centre, directed by the historian Carles Santacana, organises activities designed to bring its resources to a wider audience and forms part of the network of archive material of Catalonia through agreements with other organisations. The first practical result of this new phase was the acquisition of the Horaci Seguí photographic collection, more than a million and a half photographs related with Barca in the period from 1960 to 2003.

The opening hours of the Centre are: Mondays to Thursdays, 10 am to 2 pm and 4 pm to 6.30 pm; Fridays, 10 am to 3 pm (Nou Camp Champions League matchdays, 10 am to 1 pm). An appointment must be made in advance for the first visit.
Telephone / fax: 93 496 36 12Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Camp Nou tour through the changing rooms

The museum offers the chance to really get to know the stadium by taking a tour called Camp Nou through the installations, which takes visitors into the opposition changing rooms, down the tunnel and onto the pitch area. Fans can see the new dugouts and look out across the magnificent stadium. The alter, the TV studio, the press rooms and the directors area virtually complete the tour, with the one final surprise of a chance to enjoy a panoramic view of all FC Barcelona facilities.

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