Museu Municipal de Nàutica del Masnou

The Masnou Municipal Nautical Museum was created in 1962, driven forward by a group of citizens aware of the need to safeguard local heritage with respect to equipment and seafaring. As the collections continued to grow and a new museum presentation was needed, the Museum was transferred to its current site, which opened in 2001.

The majority of the Museum’s collections come from donations and unpaid contributions from numerous town residents, where the collection of Josep Emili Sala i Barbarà (1969) is particularly notable.

The permanent exhibition

The exhibition takes us on a journey that explains how the sea was the setting and engine of development of the municipality, of change and human transformation.

Discourse centres on the municipality’s era of greatest splendour, the 19^th century, when shipbuilding and sea trade reached its zenith.

You can learn how shipyards work, the most common transatlantic commercial routes, the products transported, famous captains and ships, as well as getting an idea of how tough life was aboard the ships. You will even have the chance to learn about the pious owner who gave thanks to the Mother of God ‘for having let him work freely and unimpeded in contraband for six years’.

Seeing by Touch

This initiative by the Barcelona Provincial Government Local Museum Network, ‘seeing by touch’ is a touch module with explanations in Braille, so that the sight impaired and blind can touch the model of a merchant ship and experience a storm at sea through the narrated story from a ship logbook. 

Jordi Pericot Kinetic Art Space

The Kinetic Art Space is the only permanent collection of art-in-movement in Spain and is devoted to the works by Jordi Pericot (Masnou, 1931), one of the most world-renowned artists from Masnou. Opened at the end of 2011, this gallery was made possible by the artist’s donation of many of his most representative pieces to the Masnou Town Council. Six different areas showcase his artistic career, closely linked to his teaching work in the field of audiovisual and social communications and design, first as the director of the Elisava School and later as professor at Barcelona University and Pompeu Fabra University. He was prominent in introducing kinetic art and optical art to Spain, artistic trends based on the aesthetic of movement. Jordi Pericot’s works make viewers have to move around to fully experience this sense of movement simulated by the creation of optical effects.

Model makers’ workshop

The goal of this workshop, managed by the Masnou Association of Model Ship Makers and with collaboration from the Museum, is to foster the revival, research and knowledge of the world of ships and the sea.Its members work actively in educational tasks and in establishing and cleaning the ship models in the Museum’s collection.