In the kitchen, in the doctor’s waiting room, in the clothes worn by a person, on a poster or a placate and even in the tunic worn by an Egyptian man or woman in the third century. Everywhere you go you will find design, which is a cultural manifestation with as much weight as the rest of the arts. You can see for yourself by looking at the many curious pieces in the collections of the Museu del Disseny (Design Museum), either in person or online:

Product design: from the kitchen to the museum

In 1994, Carme Barreda Campoy, a resident of Sants, took possession of her kitchen mixer, specifically a Minipimer MR1, and donated it to the Museu del Disseny, where it is no longer used today, but has been perfectly restored and converted into a museum piece. It was designed in 1959 by Gabriel Lluelles i Rabadà for Indústries Pimer and is another example, like the other pieces you will see in this collection, of the extent to which design is part of our daily lives. In fact, many of the pieces in the collection come, like this Minipimer in perfect condition, from a Barcelona shop or another. Gel tweezers (1964) which is a design by André Ricard; the famous Pedrera chair by Francisco Juan Barba i Corsini from 1955, which you may have had at home; the oil bottle by Rafael Marquina (you know it) or that Lógica tap by Ramon Benedito Graells which we are sure you have handled a few times. Chairs, tables, lamps, perfume bottles… Everything becomes a work of art when it passes through the filter of design, as you can see by looking at the pieces in this collection. If you still have a piece of furniture or a household appliance from the past century at home… maybe when you return after a visit to the Museu del Disseny you will look at it with different eyes.

Fashion design: modernity is a black dress

Famous Spanish and some international designers of the 20th and 21st centuries are perfectly represented in this splendid fashion collection. What you see, modernity in fashion, began, according to those who know, with a black dress by Cristóbal Balenciaga. It was the thirties of the last century and that was the beginning of a flood of talent that sometimes took the form of haute couture pieces such as those of the aforementioned Balenciaga, Pedro Rodríguez, Asunción Bastida, Carmen Mir, Santa Eulalia or Santa Eulalia, Carmen Mir, Santa Eulalia or Josep Font, and sometimes, ready-to-wear dresses by Paco Rabanne, Manuel Pertegaz, Elio Berhanyer, Antonio Meneses, Margarita Nuez, Roser Marcè, Antonio Miró and Sybilla, among others. Here you will see dresses, of course, but also many elements that have to do with fashion, including outstanding collections of fashion photography, press clippings and posters of designers that make up a dip in today’s most spectacular fashion. … but also in today’s fashion, as the Fashion Collection of the 20th and 21st centuries includes works by active designers such as José Castro, Míriam Ponsa, Josep Abril, Txell Miras, Andrea Ayala, Marina Pujadas, Manuel Bolaño, Marlota, Miriam Ocariz and Amaya Arzuaga. 

Graphic design: between the book and the tuna fish

Mass society and the new communication needs brought design to everything from posters, advertisements, notices, calendars, business cards or stock, to books, posters, magazines and even… tuna cans. Perhaps you didn’t expect design to take on these forms! Here you will find a Collection of Graphic Design that starts with Catalan graphic designers from the early 20th century and goes up to the present day, with works by Pla-Narbona, Antoni Morillas, Joan Pedragosa and Ricard Giralt-Miracle, among many others. The origin of the fund is the creators themselves, or groups of professionals, such as the ADG-FAD with the Laus Awards or the Fundació Comunicació Gràfica.

Decorative arts: life made art 

From medieval to art deco works… in all possible forms. Here you will see a carriage that looks like something out of a fairy tale, but in reality it is a car used in Mallorca in the mid-18th century, or a Barcelona landscape on tale from 1710 that shows a city filled with the pleasures of chocolate… Don’t miss the Catalan glass pieces that form part of the collection, as well as the 16th to 19th-century chest reliefs and the miniature portraits, which will leave you with your mouth wide open. Ceramics is another of the decorative arts represented in the collections of the Museu del Disseny, which includes both pieces created in al-Andalus and works from the 21st century.

If anyone has thought that this is a very boring collection of pots and plates, it is because they have not seen the wonders that are here: a joint creation by Joan Miró and Joan Gardy Artigas (the ceramist and sculptor with whom he worked closely), works by Pablo Picasso such as Bourrache, from 1942 or the extremely delicate works by Antoni Serra Abella from the forties or Elena Montañés from the nineties, as well as ceramic sculptures by artists such as Carme Llobet.

Textile arts and historical clothing: from the Egyptian tunic to the modernist costume

The arts, including design, have manifested themselves on the most diverse media, but especially on textiles. The origin of the collection is the collection received in 1883 from the traveller, numismatist and amateur naturalist Francesc Martorell, but it has incorporated such outstanding collections as those of Josep Pascó (1914) and Lluís Plandiura (1932), and the donation of Eusebi Bertrand (1981). The result is a unique collection of textile pieces that, chronologically speaking, begins in ancient Egypt, continues in the Hispano-Arabic world and passes through the medieval, Renaissance and Gothic periods. Tapestries, Indians, embroidering… all form part of the textile art collections.

But the most curious pieces are those that form part of the historical costume collection, where you can see dresses and huts, men’s and women’s costumes from the 17th and 19th centuries. Don’t miss the Catalan Art Nouveau and Art Deco dresses. They come from the donation of Manel Rocamora in 1969. He was the son of a manufacturer of candles & soaps and Anna Vidal i Sala, who introduced him to collecting. Every year he bought and kept unopened haute couture models of the moment, a custom that was maintained by his son. In addition to collecting period dresses and many other things (the Rocamora Foundation is a delight and a pleasure to visit), Manuel Rocamora ended up collecting so many dresses, capes, capes, shawls, polissons, mirinyacs and cotilles that, finally, he donated them to the Town Hall. Years ago they could be seen in the former Textile and Clothing Museum and now they are the stars of the Historical Clothing Collections of the Museu del Disseny del Disseny Hub Barcelona. They range from dresses by Maria Molist from 1916 and pieces by Pedro Rodríguez from 1928, to creations from 2002 by Antonio Miró, including a bathing costume from 1920.

Graphic arts: designed writing

Three hundred years of the evolution of the printed letter, summarised in a collection in which you will find matrices, typefaces, photogravure plates and intaglio plates by various local authors. It has been years of mechanical writing, the types that are used in printing have also been the subject of design. If you do not know who Eudald Canibell (1858-1928) or Josep Obiols (1894-1967) were, here you can see their typographies and typefaces on wood.

From works printed in different periods, printing has been transformed. You can see popular engravings from the Amades Collection, 19th and 20th century painted papers, book covers and covers, cards, advertising elements and also packaging.

Come if you want to find the pattern of the wallpaper you had in your bedroom when you were little… or be amazed by the sophistication and complexity of 19th century wallpapers, some of them by renowned artists such as Ramóon Tarragó, Isidore Leroy or William Shand Kydd. Don’t leave without seeing the posters for the Universal Exhibition of 1929 by Josep Capuz or the poster for the Festes de la Mercè of 1902 painted by Antoni Utrillo, as well as the well-known advertising posters for Anís del Mono by Ramon Casas.