An Arts Campus, a project by the University of Barcelona for Can Ricart venue
The UB will launch a project for the Arts Campus in the Can Ricart venue, which will turn this building -located in 22@- into a place to carry out the different higher education artistic disciplines in Catalonia. The creation of the Arts Campus is listed in the proposals of the National Council for Culture and Arts of Catalonia (CoNCA), a project that counts on the participation of the Generalitat, the Barcelona City Council and several education centers.
The Arts Campus will make the 6,800 square meters of the former building of Can Ricart, declared cultural good of national interest, a place for artistic training and research, with services and activities for the different centers that teach art studies. Can Ricart will therefore become a distinguished place and will contribute to create a shared institutional frame for these centers. With the principles of complementarity and interdisciplinarity, the aim is to create a center of excellence as the motor for an academic network to face the current challenges of the sector, in accordance to the report CoNCA Lʼeducació superior en lʼàmbit artistic a Catalunya. Estudi i proposta dʼorganització.
The UB will launch a project for the Arts Campus in the Can Ricart venue, which will turn this building -located in 22@- into a place to carry out the different higher education artistic disciplines in Catalonia. The creation of the Arts Campus is listed in the proposals of the National Council for Culture and Arts of Catalonia (CoNCA), a project that counts on the participation of the Generalitat, the Barcelona City Council and several education centers.
The Arts Campus will make the 6,800 square meters of the former building of Can Ricart, declared cultural good of national interest, a place for artistic training and research, with services and activities for the different centers that teach art studies. Can Ricart will therefore become a distinguished place and will contribute to create a shared institutional frame for these centers. With the principles of complementarity and interdisciplinarity, the aim is to create a center of excellence as the motor for an academic network to face the current challenges of the sector, in accordance to the report CoNCA Lʼeducació superior en lʼàmbit artistic a Catalunya. Estudi i proposta dʼorganització.
A wide training offering
The Arts Campus will hold research projects and groups according to a cooperation premise between the centers, and will organize official master degrees and PhD programs. It will also hold the Observatory of Artistic Studies in Catalonia, which will analyze the information related to the teaching demand and offering of this sector. The campus will also count on a team of professionals who will conduct the promotion and valorization tasks of the different centers as a whole, so that the potential of its presence spreads socially and internationally.
Building rehabilitation
Built in 1853, Can Ricart was destined to manufacture prints and it remained active until the last quarter of the 20th Century. This is a representative building of the industrial heritage of Barcelona and Catalonia. The city council, owner of the building, ceded the use of the main industrial building and some annexed buildings to the UB in 2015.
The rehabilitation of Can Ricart to host the Arts Campus is expected to begin next year, in 2020, with a budget of 14,200,009 euros. The UB is considering different funding options to carry out these works: own funds, despite the limited means of the University, and the funds from the Ministry of Development, the Feder Program and the Institute for Diversification and Saving of Energy (Ministry for Ecological Transition). The rehabilitation works will follow the criteria of the buildingʼs heritage restitution -now damaged-, on energetic efficiency and functionality according to the new academic uses. The rehabilitation is expected to include the creation of the classrooms, an auditorium, space for research and creation, offices and audiovisual resources.
The Arts Campus, open to entities and cultural companies that wish to join, will work under a scientific and artistic committee that will supervise the teaching and research activity, and a corporative unit to manage material and human resources, as well as institutional tasks and the tasks in the Observatory. Moreover, the administrations and teaching centers will build the governing bodies of the campus.
Activities in the Arts Campus
Now, in Catalonia, there are nineteen higher education centers dedicated to artistic studies, all of them accredited by the Generalitat and AQU. These institutions, which gather a total of 8,000 students, are the Faculty of Fine Arts of the UB; the Cinema and Audiovisual School of Catalonia (ESCAC), UB-affiliated center; Eina and Massana schools (UAB), Elisava (UPF), ESDi (URLL), ERAM (UdG) and BAU (UVic), studies of Arts and Humanities of the UOC; the Theatre Institute (Diputació de Barcelona); the Escola Superior de Conservació i Restauració de Bens Culturals de Catalunya (ESCRBCC), Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) and the School of Design and Plastic Arts of Catalonia (ESDAP), which belong to the Generalitat de Catalunya; the Liceu Conservatory; Taller de Músics; the School of Music Jam Session; Eolia School of Dramatic Art; Fashion School Felicidad Duce, from LCI network, and the School of Design (IED).
In short, the Arts Campus in Can Ricart has three aims: to strengthen artistic studies and promote master studies, research and PhD studies in this field, which are still a minority in the sector; carry out the rehabilitation of an industrial heritage building, and contribute to dynamize the cultural pole of 22@. The project is based on the principle that improving the scientific and training capacity of artistic disciplines is beneficial for students and lecturers but also for the professionals, companies and equipment of this sector, and in general, for the cultural life of the country.