Can Framis

When Can Framis opens its doors on a quiet Tuesday, you’re walking into a space that Barcelona ordinary life once treated as background—working fabric, warehouses, deliveries. Today, it preserves that same industrial stubbornness, but redirects it toward a very specific kind of seeing: contemporary Catalan painting. The museum is the latest project of the Fundació Vila Casas, opened to the public on April 27, 2009. It sits inside the older Can Framis factory complex, originally owned by the Framis family, dating back to the late 18th century. Over time, the buildings fell into disuse, and the factory became a lingering reminder of Poblenou’s industrial labor—until an ambitious restoration gave those structures a new everyday use: art, education, and public visits rather than production.

A factory turned into galleries

The renovation was directed by architect Jordi Badia, founder and director of BAAS architecture studio. His project restored two existing factory buildings and added a third new volume to link them, aligning with the footprint of a former warehouse. Together, the result forms an interior courtyard, a space that functions like a pause between buildings rather than a leftover gap. In that courtyard stands Jaume Plensa’s sculpture Dell’Arte, created in 1990, later donated by the Vila Casas Foundation to the city of Barcelona in 2012.