The Thyssen Museum on the Costa Brava to be built in Sant Feliu de Guíxols

The new art museum will focus on Catalan painting and will display parts of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection. The city council approved the excutive project to build the Thyssen Museum. The project will cost 15 million euros (3 less than initially planned) and will restore an old cork factory.

CNA / Joaquim Gómez Ribas

June 10, 2011 09:26 PM

Sant Feliu de Guíxols (ACN).- The Sant Feliu de Guíxols city council, a town on the Costa Brava, unanimously approved the executive project to build the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Centre for Catalan Painting. This cultural complex will host a part of the Thyssen family collection which is currently housed in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. This project has a cost of 15 million euros but the first architectural study estimated that the project will cost an additional 3 million euros. The Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Centre for Catalan Painting will be housed in an old cork factory called Can Serra, near to the monastery which already hosts the city’s history museum.


The definitive agreement brings the total cost down to 15 million euros, 3 million less than planned in the architectural study. The city council has been studying how the building will accommodate the Art Centre given that the Catalan budget does not include any project to promote any building work. The Thyssen museum is at the core of the cultural ring that includes the Monastery and the Abbot’s Palace, with a total surface of 4,420 m2, the Serra Vicens building (2,300 m2) and the theatre (767 m2).

The plenary also approved the exchange between the City council and the Porta Ferrada society for the Can Serra building it so that the Serra Vicens factory could become a fundamental piece definitively integrated into the cultural ring surrounding the Thyssen Museum. In exchange for this building, the City council will give the owners of Can Serra a municipal plot of residential land on the Sant Pol beach.

A 15 million euro project

The architectural study, underwritten by Bobpa Arquitectura, estimated a budget of more than 18 million euros for the executive project. The definitive agreement, though, has lowered the cost to 15 million euros because over the last few months the city council has made some prospecting work in the building that will host the Art Centre. This final tightening of the budget finally allowed all municipal political parties to vote in favour of the executive project.