€73.12 Million Investment to Solve Museum Storage Crisis
The Department of Culture has approved the creation of the National Reserve of Catalonia, a shared storage and conservation facility in Sant Fruitós de Bages, to address chronic space shortages across 122 registered museums. The project, backed by a total investment of €73.12 million, is expected to become operational between the third quarter of 2029 and 2030. Currently, Catalan museums manage eight million heritage items, most of which remain unseen in storage. According to the Department of Culture, 80% of museums report insufficient space and 60% lack proper storage conditions. The reserve will consolidate collections from 171 existing storage spaces, including 46 external sites, into a single, climate-controlled, secure facility.
Warehouse Purchase and Adaptation Plan
The facility will occupy a 33,488 m² warehouse on a 65,800 m² plot, originally built for a supermarket logistics centre that was never used. The property, owned by P3 Logistics Parks, will be leased initially for three years at a cost of €8.36 million before being purchased outright for €41.26 million. An additional €23.5 million will fund adaptations to meet conservation standards. Josep Maria Carreté, secretary general of the Department of Culture, explained the phased financial approach: "It is a fiscal issue. The company asked us to do it this way. Our intention was to buy it immediately."
Optimised Storage and Emergency Capacity
The warehouse’s 11-metre free height allows for a double-height floor, expanding usable space to 64,000 m² and accommodating collection growth for the next 25 years. Collections will be organised by material type, not by originating museum, to optimise climate control. A dedicated section will be reserved for emergency response, enabling rapid relocation of items during floods or disasters.
"We are increasingly exposed to floods or disasters. If we have this reserve, we will be able to immediately transfer the affected objects there to carry out the first rescue operations,"
, Quim Borràs, Director General of Cultural Heritage The facility will also house police seizures and judicial deposits, with security co-designed with the Mossos d'Esquadra, Catalonia’s regional police.
Public Access and Collection Management
Although primarily a working reserve, the site will offer occasional public guided tours. Seventy-eight per cent of Catalan museums have expressed interest in participating, representing an initial transfer of around 140,000 items. Sònia Blasco, head of the Museums Service, stressed that the reserve is not a bottomless pit: "This will have a limit and very clear criteria will have to be established. The pieces sent there must be very well documented." A new open catalog system is being developed to replace the current obsolete database. The redistribution will also free up the Cervera reserves, allowing the National Museum of Science and Technology of Catalonia (MNACTEC) to fully occupy the site once archaeology collections are moved to Sant Fruitós de Bages.
Reported by en.ara.cat, diaricatalunya.cat, culturayletras.com, elpais.com, lavanguardia.com, ACN, museuartmedieval.cat, macba.cat.
