Heritage Consortium requests that Cau Ferrat and Maricel Museum becomes of national interest

Sitges Heritage Consortium asked the Catalonian Government to declare the Cau Ferrat and Maricel Museum as museums of national interest. The petition is supported by the application approved by the General Council of the Consortium on 10 May, from a report drawn by the Director, Vinyet Panyella. Currently, there are seven museums in Catalonia that have this condition: Joan Miró Foundation, the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, the MEV, the Maritime Museum, the Museum of Montserrat, the Picasso Museum and the Diocesan and Regional Museum of Lleida.

Being a museum of national interest provides a condition and a status that reinforces the prestige positioning and diffusion of the centers that obtain it. Since 2000, Cau Ferrat Museum is a museum that belongs to the section of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, but not the Maricel. The new role of Maricel and Cau since the reopening of December 2014 advise opening a new door through this statement, which corresponds to make to the Government of Catalonia.

Article 26 of the current Law of Museums of Catalonia (Law 17/1990 of 2 November, museums, DOGC. 1367, of 14.11.1990) establishes the category of museums of national interest, given to those museums in which "the importance and value of all culture that they bring together, for general or specific features of the collection interests, or because of their museum heritage beyond its framework, have a special significance for the cultural heritage of Catalonia. " The second paragraph of that article states "The declaration of national interest is without prejudice to the continuity of the ownership and management of each museum."

The declaration of museums of national interest regarding Maricel and Cau Ferrat Museums is part of the strategic goals of the Sitges Heritage Consortium, and is justified because of their unique collections - Rusiñol, in the first case, and the conjunction of the collections of Dr. Jesus Perez Rosales and the Art Collection of the City of Sitges, in the second-. These prestigious art collections set the value of their content, and are also within the context of public museum collections in Catalonia. Proof of the high number of visitors received since 2015, the number of items requested on loan to other museums, both domestic and foreign, as well as the large number of activities organized. Beyond the content of the collections, both buildings, both the Cau Ferrat and the Maricel Museum, are both iconic enough to represent the two most important architectural styles of modern and contemporary Catalonia, such as, respectively, Modernism and Noucentisme. Whether a building as the other, both external construction and the collections represented, are elements that enjoy the maximum protection declared in the urban planning and heritage of Catalonia. Therefore, and continent and content are two reasons justifying the request for the declaration proposed.