Image: Tàpies Museum, Barcelona
The Tàpies Museum is marking 36 years since it opened in Barcelona, highlighting the institution’s long presence in the city’s cultural landscape. According to the museum, it first opened in 1990 in the former headquarters of Editorial Montaner y Simón, a building designed by the modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner.
The anniversary points back to a key moment in the museum’s history: the reuse of a notable architectural landmark for an institution dedicated to the work and legacy of Antoni Tàpies. The building itself was declared a historic monument in 1997, underlining its status as an important example of the transition to modernisme, the Catalan architectural and artistic movement associated with the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The museum’s message, shared on 15 July 2026, frames the anniversary as both an institutional milestone and a reminder of the building’s architectural significance. By situating the museum in Domènech i Montaner’s former publishing-house premises, the institution links contemporary exhibition culture with one of Barcelona’s best-known modernist structures.
The museum identifies the site as the former Editorial Montaner y Simón building, an address that has become closely associated with the museum itself since its opening in 1990. Its location in a historic modernist building gives the institution an added layer of context beyond its role as a museum devoted to Tàpies.
The anniversary post does not announce a new exhibition or public programme. Instead, it foregrounds the opening date and the building’s heritage, noting that the museum has now reached its 36th year. The source material also specifies that the building was declared a historic monument in 1997.
Founded in the early 1990s, the Tàpies Museum continues to occupy one of Barcelona’s significant modernist landmarks, where the history of the building and the museum’s own institutional identity remain closely intertwined. The museum opened on 15 July 1990.
