A building by Enric Sagnier full of works of art... that you shouldn't look at

If you were to follow the rules of all authorities who have censored the works in this museum, you would make this visit... with your eyes closed. 

And it would be a pity, because the building you will be taken to is a small wonder and is full of works of art that will make you think. Every Sunday until 26th May, they offer a guided tour of the Casa Garriga Nogués and the Museu de l'Art Prohibit.

This is an initiative of Cases Singulars, an organisation that has managed to bring together the owners of many buildings in the city with a lot of value and to open these premises to the curiosity of Barcelona residents.

In this way we have been able to see all kinds of places that we would not otherwise have been able to visit. One of these spaces is the Casa Garriga Nogués, a building in the Eixample that in recent years has had a double artistic life. It was built by the architect Enric Sagnier (the architect of the Tibidabo Expiatory Temple) in 1904 for the Barcelona banking family Garriga Nogués. Inspired by Modernism, but eclectic in style, the building was a school, housed the offices of the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana, was home to the Fundació Gòdia, the Fundació Mapfre and, since 2023, the Museu de l'Art Prohibit, a facility that houses the works that the journalist and producer Tatxo Benet has been collecting for years.

On this visit, you will not only walk through the main areas of the building, including a beautiful monumental staircase and the original stained-glass windows, with classical and modernist elements, but you will also see the works of art, all of them transgressive and controversial, that Benet has been collecting.

There are about two hundred works that, at different times, have been censored for political, social or religious reasons, but which have finally found their place in a museum that shows and celebrates those works that, at some point, someone decided that we should not see.

Ironic, reflective creations, with a mordacity that is often painful. You will find it all in a collection of works that includes a Goya or a creation by Pablo Picasso as well as Gustav Klimt or works by authors of our times ranging from Ai Weiwei, Robert Mapplethorpe or Tania Bruguera, to Equipo Crónica, works by the controversial Abel Azcona or works by the king of pop art, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Miquel Barceló and even Banksy. 

If you don't want to miss a guided tour of the Museu de l'Art Prohibit and the fabulous building that houses it, check out all the information about the activity on the Cases Singulars website and make your reservation.