Barcelona, one of the most attractive cities, very alive and interesting, allows participants of the variety of courses offered in the city, to see in first hand some of the most innovative initiatives in the field of cultural management, as well as enjoy art and cultural vitality of the Catalan capital.

Facing the Mediterranean sea, and as center of a metropolitan area of about four million people from diverse cities with a strong tradition and cultural dynamism, Barcelona has a dynamic economy and a large architectural and artistic heritage forged in its more than 2000 years of history.

In the historical city centre lives the roman city (urban environment, high walls, History Museum of the City), with the great medieval capital with emblematic buildings like the “Palau de la Generalitat”, the “Casa de la Ciutat”, the “Palau de la Musica”, the “Drassanes Reials”, palaces at the Montcada Street, the Cathedral, Santa Maria del Mar, St. Pau Camp or Santa Maria del Pi and urban structures before the industrial revolution (such as the waterfront, Raval and Barceloneta)

The Widening, L'Eixample, the great bourgeois district of the city centre, focuses the best collection of modernist architecture (art nouveau) in Europe.

The heritage of the streets is complemented by a wide artistic, scientistic and humanistic range represented in more than thirty museums, among them the National Museum of Catalan Art, the Picasso Museum and the Miró Foundation.

However, Barcelona's cultural dynamism goes beyond museums and architecture. Many visual artists, writers and musicians from around the world have chosen the city as a place of residence and work, which allows the emergence of multiple mixing and new genres. Barcelona is also a privileged space for theatre, opera, contemporary music and dance, with emblematic proposals like the new city of the theatre, the Gran Teatro Liceu or festivals GREC and BAM. This cutting-edge trend does not rule out maintenance and the reinvention of the traditional Catalan culture, the creation and exchange of artistic expressions of recent immigration and the historical use of the streets as a space of experimentation, living together, party and meeting. In this sense, it is worth not to miss the festivities of La Mercè and the thousand and one proposals of the different neighbourhoods of the city.

With the recovery, in the late seventies, of the democracy and political autonomy for Cataluña, after 40 years of dictatorship, the new government institutions put in place extensive programs to promote cultural and linguistic diversity. So, Barcelona is now one of the most dynamic and interesting cities of Europe to study and deepen the field of production, management, tourism and cultural policies, as evidenced by the conclusion of the Universal Forum of Cultures in the city.

Webpage City Council: www.bcn.cat