Museum Review 01 | Disseny Hub
Hello, friends!
My name is Tati Ferrucio, and I am a Brazilian industrial designer. My job has transferred me to a year assignment in Germany, so I decided to do reviews of the design museums I have visited while I am around.
I will start this series with the most recent museum I have been to — Disseny Hub Barcelona. My spoiler alert is that this was one of my favorites. So let’s get started!
The Museum
The Museu del Disseny de Barcelona is located at the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes, close to the Torre Glòries (the famous high-tech building with a geyser shape). The building is H-U-G-E! I was impressed by its size. It was a good hint that Barcelona would know how to honor its reputation as a center for Arts and Design.
I went to Disseny on November 2nd, 2023. This day was cold, rainy, and CRAZY WINDY. Very untypical for Barcelona in the Fall season, but I guess climate change is making the weather crazier than ever. The stop at DHub made my day a bit more comfy and cozy, though :)
The area around the museum was under construction. It took me a few minutes to realize the main entrance was on the bottom floor. If you take the subway there, your exit will probably be on the museum’s second floor. You have to walk a bit and take the stairs to reach the museum’s first floor. It’s very simple, but it took me a minute, haha (*clown face*)
What did I see?
Disseny’s permanent collection has a variety of exciting pieces. The exhibition Common Objects: Local Stories, Global Debates displays multiple objects — furniture, lighting, appliances, homeware, and many more — that have impacted Catalan and Spanish society through design, transforming those artifacts as part of popular culture.
Throughout the exhibition, I delved into Catalunya’s history — from a dictatorship period (1939–1975) to becoming an autonomous community within Spain nowadays. It was fascinating to see the local artists and designers’ interpretation of these societal challenges and how their creations have contributed to behavior change through innovation, communication, and emotions.
Disseny brings to light the story of many objects that might be seen as ordinary but that highly impacted society in the context in which they were developed. Consequently, those artifacts became part of Spanish and Catalan history and were eternalized by their collective memory.
The last section displayed artifacts that address and challenge our present living, calling the audience to a genuine debate around our actions as a society. It was curious to see ordinary objects on the museum floor, such as Barcelona’s traffic light (which I thought was cool even before seeing it there, haha).
Heading to the floors above, I passed quickly through an exhibition called Do You Work or Design? The New Visual Communication 1980–2003 (this title felt like a personal attack, but okay). It featured relevant graphic pieces (majority of posters) that resonated with its historical context, consistently emphasizing the Catalan viewpoint during those moments.
My next stop was the Fashion exhibition Dressing the Body: Silhouettes and Fashion (1550–2015). Here, they presented the progression of clothing across decades, illustrating how various factors, including technology and historical events, influenced changes in our attire. The pieces were grouped through periods of time, providing a captivating glimpse into this evolution through tangible examples.
The two last exhibitions on the upper floor shared the same space. The first one — Extraordinary! Collections of decorative arts (3rd-19th Century) — offers a collection of items such as ceramics, textiles, furniture, glassware, miniatures, clocks, wallpaper, etc, giving the audience an overall perspective of the history of decorative arts in Catalunya.
The last one is titled Modernisme: Towards the Design Culture. Also part of the permanent collection, it portrays Modernisme (Catalan modernism) as the beginning of the Design culture in Catalunya, highlighting it as an exclusive case from the rest of Europe.
Unlike other European creative hubs, Modernism in Barcelona has never seen craft and manufacturing as contradictory means of creation but as complementary parts of the design process.
This thought reflects on the look and feel of the objects, giving a whole new meaning to Art Nouveau back in the day and a unique north star to the creative industry in Barcelona.
What was Special?
I got to Disseny expecting to see nice design pieces. Still, the greatest surprise was a huge collection of artifacts designed by women worldwide. HERE WE ARE! Women in Design 1900 — Today brought this beautiful and thought-out exhibition of objects and graphic pieces designed by women from the 1900s to today. The exhibition features local artists and well-known international names such as Alma Buscher, Ray Eames, Lella Vignelli, and Patricia Urquiola.
In a chronological walkthrough, we can enjoy a series of different pieces — furniture, toys, homeware, office products, clothing, jewelry — as well as sketches, illustrations, and photography work. This exhibition displays different practices through different communities, historical moments, and economic systems (there are designs from women in the socialist regime as well).
This temporary show was a game-changer in my experience at Disseny. It was the first time I had seen a substantial amount of objects designed by women on the same spot.
HERE WE ARE! presents a captivating collection with a plural perspective on women in design, highlighting creatives who envision a more gender-equal and inclusive society.
The only wrong I can’t think of is that it’s not part of the permanent collection (there’s still time, Disseny! ❤).
3 Small Nice Things
Affordable Entrance: The ticket to access the whole facility (permanent and temporary collections) costs only 6 EUR. The person at the front desk also said something about the ticket being valid for a few more days so I could re-enter the museum at another time (my Spanish wasn’t good enough to understand how long the ticket was valid; my bad!).
Good illumination: At this point, I visited enough museums to get a little mad when the illumination doesn’t correctly light up the pieces (*crappy camera photos everywhere*). Disseny has a well-organized exhibition plan with proper lighting for each room. The rooms were inviting, and even the temporary collections were well thought-out and illuminated.
Affordable Souvenir: At the end of my visits, I always try to get a physical object that will remind me of that experience (who doesn’t love a design museum store? ❤). Not really sure why, but Disseny doesn’t have a proper museum store — they sell a few items at the main entrance’s front desk (where you also buy your ticket). Either way, I got two nice magnets and an eco bag for less than 15 euros.
And my rating is… ★ ★ ★ ★
4 BIG stars for DHub! The quality of the pieces and their importance to the history of Catalan society makes this museum fascinating. Through those objects, I learned more about the history, people, and all the cultural influences these objects have imposed on this community (and vice-versa). I loved how simple objects of everyday living got their deserved spot and had their stories told through a comprehensive exhibition.
Barcelona is a city recognized for addressing the challenges of urbanization and climate change through a creative perspective. Disseny greatly serves its community by explaining its ambitious initiatives to the audience.
This museum told me the story of a community that understood how to harmoniously merge arts, crafts, and technology. No doubt, this gives Barcelona the title of one of the most important creative hubs in Europe.
The Women in Design exhibition was the golden start on the top of this beautiful Christmas tree — absolutely stunning and heartwarming.
Thanks, Barcelona! Hope to be back soon ❤
— If you want to see more photos of this museum visit, you are more than welcome to check my Instagram highlights @heytati_id. See you on the next review :)
