Museu Blau expands exhibition in former Forum 2004 Building BARCELONA, SPAIN, 21 FEBRUARY 2012 – Today the Museu Blau, Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona marks the final expansion of its permanent exhibition “Planeta Vida” (Planet Life) in the transformed
Forum 2004 Building, after three years of continuing works. This reuse initiates a new life cycle of mutual benefit for both institutions. The Forum architecture with its reference to natural processes and shapes is a particularly appropriate new home for the Museum of Natural Sciences; and the Museum aims to energetically revitalise the existing building, replacing vacant space with intense new public activities. The interior and lobby extend down to the plaza connecting to the large covered public space of Museu Blau, allowing for the visitor to invigorate the rapidly developing area where the Diagonal Avenue reaches the sea.
The interior of the elevated triangular building is like a vast interior landscape, structured by patios. It creates a specific space well suited to the Museum's demand for growth and need to display more of it's outstanding collection of three million pieces. The exhibition arrangement follows the logic of the existing space and at the same time radically transforms it. The museography developed by Herzog & de Meuron is structured around British scientist James Lovelock's hypothesis of Gaia - the idea that the living and non-living parts of the Earth form a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. The exhibiton "Planeta Vida" opens to the public on Wednesday 22 February.
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