Barcelona Blog | Guide to visit and enjoy the city of Barcelona

This Saturday May 19th don´t miss the Night of the Museums!

flatbarcelona — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:00:36 +0000

On the Saturday night 19th of May 52 city museums open their doors to visitors from 19h till 1h. Come an enjoy! More than 100 exhibitions and permanent colections, many concerts, dance events, video instalations, workshops and activities for the whole family.

The Night of The Museums is an initiative promoted by European council with 40 countries and more than 3000 museums participating. See the full program offered here.

“Flat Barcelona Blog Blog about Barcelona City. Guide to discover Barcelona city, what to do, visits, news, cultural events, best places to go all our suggestions to enjoy your trip. You can read the original blog post here This Saturday May 19th don´t miss the Night of the Museums!.”

IX HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL OF BARCELONA

flatbarcelona — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:10:30 +0000

The IX Human Rights Film Festival with the central in Barcelona and done also in NYC and Paris is directed by Toni Navarro and organised by theMirada Descubierta entity. This festival remains faithful to a dual commitment: on the one hand, to promote and open up spaces for the dissemination and screening of cinematographic works dealing with the defence of human rights; and on the other hand to increase public awareness and boost respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights based on the dissemination of those works.

Will be held from 17 to 22 May 2012 at the following venues:

BARCELONA

Filmoteca de Catalunya. Pl. Salvador Seguí, s/n
Cinemes Girona. C/ de Girona, 173.
Institut Francès Barcelona. C/ Moià, 8.
Museu d’Història de Catalunya. Pl. Pau Vila, 3.
Fundació Casa del Tibet. C / Rosselló, 181.
FNAC Triangle. Pl. Catalunya, 4.
Centre de Cultura de Dones Francesca Bonnemaison. Sant Pere més Baix 7.
Palau Robert. Passeig de Gràcia, 107.

Find the full program here.

Countdown to Primavera Sound 2012

flatbarcelona — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:03:07 +0000

Primavera Sound, one of the biggest late spring music festivals in Barcelona this year starts the 30th of May and will last until the 3rd of June.

Festival Primavera Sound has always concentrated on offering the chance to see new promising independent bands and also renowned artists from any style or genre, fundamentally looking for quality and essentially backing pop and rock as well as underground electronic and dance music.
Over the last ten years, the festival has had the most diverse range of artists. Some of those who have been on stage
are, Pixies, Aphex Twin, Neil Young, Sonic Youth, Portishead, Pet Shop Boys, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Lou Reed, Pulp, Patti Smith, Public Enemy, Enrique Morente, The White Stripes, Wilco, Tindersticks, PJ Harvey, Dinosaur Jr. and many many more.

Year after year, Primavera Sound has attracted a bigger and bigger crowd, as well as getting more and more media attention. The festival, now an unmissable musical event, has broken all records last year with an attendance of 123.000 peop

Its characteristics and the wide range of bands performing have been the main reasons that have made Primavera Sound the meeting point of artists and festivalgoers from various generations.

Line up of Primavera Sound this year includes more than one hundred bands. Mentioning just some of them: The Cure, Beirut, Bjork, Franz Ferdinand, Lee Ranaldo, Mazzy star, Mudhoney, Nacho Vegas, The Rapture, St, Etienne, Yo la tengo, Yan Tiersen…

Besides the official programme on 8 stages in Parc del Forum, there are many interesting additional programmes. Children´s activity Minimúsica will host musical performances in which the bands adapt their repertoire for a family audience. As each year, Primavera Sound will continue having a space for national and international independent labels to display their products to the public on a Record Fair in Fòrum.

One of the novelties of this edition is the arrival of Flatstock, a touring show of concert posters by artists that will be the biggest exhibition of this type to visit Europe. Flatstock will be located next to the record fair at Parc del Forum and it will be dedicated to the work of 30 artists. From 15th of May till 3rd of June Virreina Centre de la Imatge will host an exhibition with a selection of 50 works chosen by Flatstock as well as some posters of renown Catalan artists will be shown. This exhibition will form part of the Primavera a la Ciutat activities.

Primavera a la Ciutat will bring the music closer to all audiences introducing the event in the very center of Barcelona. Free and large-scale event will take place at Arco del Triumfo for two days, coinciding with the inauguration and closing days of the festival, the 30th May and 2nd June. The programme will include several national and international artists, amongst them will be the composer and multi-instrumentalist Yann Tiersen, the British band Saint Etienne and Jeremy Jay.

Sant Jordi 2012 Barcelona

flatbarcelona — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:29:17 +0000

Today is Sant Jordi´s ( Saint George) day – a day famous for “books and flowers”. The city is filled with book and flower stands, you can find good deals on books and many writers are also there signing their books. It is a tradition to go for a walk, buy a rose and a book and give it to the loved ones.

The origins of this unusual festival are found in a mixture of traditions and customs from different periods. The celebration of day of Sant Jordi, the patron saint of Catalonia, concide with also medival custom of celebrating a fair and exhibition of roses in Palacio de la Generalitat.

The Book Day was added to these traditional celebration more recently, in 1926. The original idea was proposed by the Valencian writer based in Barcelona, Vicent Andrés Clavel. At first, The Book Day was set to be on 30th of April, but it changed the date to April 23, to commemorate the day writers Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died. On April 23 many other famous writers got born or died: Josep Pla (1981), Maurice Druon (1918), K. Laxness 1902), Vladimir Nabokov (1899) and Manuel Mejía Vallejo (1923).

On Sant Jordi´s day Palau de Generalitat opens its doors for general public. Today you have the oportunity to visit the headquarters of the Government of Catalonia from 11.30 till 19. Find the additional activities program here.

Most of the bookshops make special recomendations for Sant Jordi and here you can find out what one of the best Barcelona´s bookshops La Central is offering this year

Mecal – International Short Film Festival of Barcelona is about to start

flatbarcelona — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:13:46 +0000

Mecal, International Short Film Festival of Barcelona will be taking place from 12 till 29 of April. This year Mecal is moving from Poble Espanyol to different spaces around the city. Cinemes Girona, Fábrica Moritz, Antic Teatre, La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Instituto Francés de Barcelona and Espacio Cultural Caja Madrid will all be the places where you can see the programs of this interesting festival.

As always, the program is very rich and diverse and is divided in many sections. International, Actual, Documentary, Womart, Video-dance, Children are just some of them. The program of Mecal this year also includes selection of films from film festivals Interfilm and Winterhur, as well as a selection of short films of François Ozon and Panoramas of Spanish and Catalan filmmakers.

You can check the full program of Mecal 2012 here.

“Flat Barcelona Blog Blog about Barcelona City. Guide to discover Barcelona city, what to do, visits, news, cultural events, best places to go all our suggestions to enjoy your trip. You can read the original blog post here Mecal – International Short Film Festival of Barcelona is about to start.”

The first Sunday of each month the entrance to most of the Barcelona´s museums is free!

flatbarcelona — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:11:48 +0000

This Sunday is the 1st of April, and each first Sunday of the month the entrance is free to many of the city museums. The news is that the other museums will let you get in for free each Sunday after 15:00.

Here we are publishing the full list of all the museums that open their doors with no charge each first Sunday of month!

CosmoCaixa. Museu de la Ciència

C/ Isaac Newton, 26

From 10 till 20

www.cosmocaixa.com

Disseny Hub Barcelona. Museu de les Arts Decoratives i Museu Tèxtil i d’Indumentària

Palau Reial de Pedralbes. Av. Diagonal, 686

From 10 till 15

www.museutextil.bcn.cat

MNAC. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

Palau Nacional. Parc de Montjuïc

From 10 til 14:30

www.mnac.es

Museu Barbier-Mueller d’Art Precolombí

C/ Montcada, 14

From 10 till 19

www.amicsmuseuprecolombi.org

Museu d’Història de Catalunya

Pl. de Pau Vila, 3

From 10 till 14:30

www.mhcat.net

Museu de Ceràmica

Palau Reial de Pedralbes. Av. Diagonal, 686

From 10 till 15

www.museuceramica.bcn.cat

Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona

Passeig Picasso, s/n

From 10 till 14:30

www.bcn.cat/museuciencies

Museu de la Música

L’Auditori. C/ Padilla, 155

From 10 till 18

www.museumusica.bcn.cat

Museu Etnològic

Pg. de Santa Madrona, s/n

From 10 till 14

www.museuetnologic.bcn.cat

Museu Picasso

C/ Montcada, 15-23

From 10 till 20

www.museupicasso.bcn.cat

Museu-Monestir de Pedralbes

Baixada del Monestir, 9

From 10 till 15

www.museuhistoria.bcn.cat

Conjunt Monumental de la Pl. del Rei. Museu d’Història de Barcelona

Pl. del Rei, s/n

From 10 till 15

www.museuhistoria.bcn.es/

Museu Marítim de Barcelona

Av. de les Drassanes, s/n

From 15 till 19

www.mmb.cat/

“Flat Barcelona Blog Blog about Barcelona City. Guide to discover Barcelona city, what to do, visits, news, cultural events, best places to go all our suggestions to enjoy your trip. You can read the original blog post here The first Sunday of each month the entrance to most of the Barcelona´s museums is free!.”

A collage before collage at Picasso Museum of Barcelona

flatbarcelona — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:38:27 +0000

If you are in Barcelona from April till June, you have the oportunity to see the exhibition A collage before collage at the Picasso museum in Montcada street of Barcelona.

It was Pablo Picasso who invented collage as an artistic technique exactly one hundred years ago. However, it was in Barcelona, in the spring of 1899 he made a drawing in which he glued a technically reproduced image: the portrait of an actress. This piece is a picture card from a matchbox, which were very popular back then.

Exhibition A collage before collage explores the new visuality of this period in which drawings and photographs vied for position in the popular illustrated papers and magazines, the boom in the mass production of printed images which filled everyday life, and the vogue for collecting them that seized a large part of the population.

“Flat Barcelona Blog Blog about Barcelona City. Guide to discover Barcelona city, what to do, visits, news, cultural events, best places to go all our suggestions to enjoy your trip. You can read the original blog post here A collage before collage at Picasso Museum of Barcelona.”

Afrika cine cycle at Caixa Forum

flatbarcelona — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:50:37 +0000

From 2nd till 5th of April Caixa Forum of Barcelona is bringing us closer to the realities of African countries through the cycle of films about Africa. All of these films share the common factor – the struggle of its protagonists.

The films selected are showing us the stories from Mali, Senegal, Uganda and Algeria as seen through the cameras of directors Abbas Kiarostami “ABC Africa”, Moussa Sene Absa “Madame Brouette”, Djamila Sahraoui “Barakat!” and Abderrahmane Sissako “Bamako”.

Unique chance to see the films you don´t encounter every day. Sessions start at 19.00 and the entrance is 3 euros.

L´Observatori Fabra. Discover the place where Barcelona is closest to the stars

flatbarcelona — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 23:42:24 +0000

There is a place, almost next to the famous amusement park Tibidabo, with one of the best views over the city, but also a place from which you can explore Barcelona sky better than from any other. Once you are here, you can feel the beat of the city humming from the distance – and get the real picture of its size and “concreteness”.

Hidden between the pine trees of Collserola park, L´Observatori Fabra is operating for already more than 100 years. This center belongs to the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona. It was constructed thanks to the legacy of Camil Fabra i Fontanills, the first marques of Alella, and inaugurated in 1904. Since then, its main functions are explorations in the fields of Astronomy, Meteorology and Seismology.

The best part of all is that L´Observatori Fabra is open to general public. They are organizing diverse Astronomy courses, but you can also pay a day or night visit or as well come and have a dinner under the carpet of stars.

Day visits are organized on Sundays at 11 and 12.30. These visits include guided tour during which you get to know all the interesting facts about L´Observatori, its history, installations, two hundred years old telescopes, or find out about the all the current earthquakes happening anywhere in the world. In August these visits are not avaialable and there are certain days during the year when the Observatori is closed. Best advise is checking L`Observatori website before going.

Calendar of night visits at the Observatori Fabra

Night visits are taking place from October till June. These are the visits that are really interesting, because you get to observe the sky using a centenary telescope! You do need to make a reservation in advance, and you need to check the visiting calendar.

If you are into something even more exclusive, you can choose to have a dinner under the stars! This activity is organized in the summer only ( June – September) on a terrace with the view over the city and under the sky. Here you will get the chance to observe the major part of solar system as well as some distant objects like double- stars and the elements of lunar constalations.

Certainly the original way to spend the night in Barcelona!

“Flat Barcelona Blog Blog about Barcelona City. Guide to discover Barcelona city, what to do, visits, news, cultural events, best places to go all our suggestions to enjoy your trip. You can read the original blog post here L´Observatori Fabra. Discover the place where Barcelona is closest to the stars.”

Filmoteca Catalunya finally inaugurates in the new space in the center of Barcelona and opens one of the most important cinema -libraries in Europe

flatbarcelona — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 13:24:46 +0000

With a year delay, Filmoteca de Catalunya has finally inaugurated its new space. Just next to Rambla de Raval, on Plaça Salvador Seguí, 1-9 new Filmoteca now occupies a 6 storey building with 2 cinemas, a library, an exhibition hall, a bookshop specialized in cinema and soon it will even have a café.The cinema is now much more spacious than the old one, which will make it possible to practically double the programme. You can already notice this, since the season kicked off with many different cine-cycles.

First programmes in the new space of Filmoteca de Catalunya are Bigas Luna and Aleksandar Sokurov retrospectives, cicle dedicated to the films about the Spanish Civil War, cycle ”D´ofici periodista” that deals with journalism and media, cicle of cinema-classics… “The best films of the year” cycle is a possibility to catch up with what you´ve missed last year and Thursdays and Sundays will be reserved for documentaries.

The library of Filmoteca de Catalunya is one of the most important libraries of Cinema in Europe. With more than 45000 books, 1500 historical magazines, 20000 graphic archives, more than 8000 films on video or DVD format, 5000 soundtracks – it is a real treasure, and it is open to general public. Whether you are dedicated to investigation work, need to find the specific article you´re looking for or want to visualize some of the cine-classics, you will find it all here, in Filmoteca´s library.

For all the additional information check their new website: http://www.filmoteca.cat

“Flat Barcelona Blog Blog about Barcelona City. Guide to discover Barcelona city, what to do, visits, news, cultural events, best places to go all our suggestions to enjoy your trip. You can read the original blog post here Filmoteca Catalunya finally inaugurates in the new space in the center of Barcelona and opens one of the most important cinema -libraries in Europe.”