Preventive conservation, a strategy at the service of heritage

The project of evaluation surveys of preventive conservation in Catalan museums has been developed in order to have a comprehensive and as careful as possible view of the state and application of preventive conservation in heritage spaces, a diagnosis that will be of great importance for designing strategies and policies for the future.

To find out the degree of implementation of preventive conservation in the museums of the Institute of Culture of Barcelona, two specialists in preventive conservation visited the spaces of our centre, which has a surface area of 24,419 m2 and includes the reserve, exhibitions and technical services. They also studied the exterior of the building to get an overview of the facilities. The survey will be recorded in a database along with the other participating Catalan museums.

This project has been promoted by the Museums and Protection of Movable Property Service of the Generalitat de Catalunya, together with the Centre for the Restoration of Movable Property of Catalonia and with the support of a technical commission of specialists in preventive conservation. This application, within the framework of the strategic objective of the document "Museums 2030. Plan for Museums of Catalonia", is to "Improve the conservation and management of collections and promote development and dynamisation so that they serve current and future needs".