The president of the La Caixa Foundation, Isidre Fainé, and the mayor of Málaga, Francisco de la Torre, signed an agreement yesterday to build a new CaixaForum in the Andalusian city, which they expect to open in 2026. The centre, which will have an extension of 8,200 meters of gross surface area and more than 5,000 of net surface area, will be located in Manuel Azaña Square, one of the most visible entrances to the city, which connects with the key artery of Avinguda d’Andalusia . With this, Málaga will exponentially strengthen the successful bet it has made in recent years for museums, which includes everything from the Picasso to a sub-headquarters of the Center Pompidou.
For its part, with the construction of a CaixaForum in Málaga, La Caixa Foundation, the largest in Spain and one of the most important in the world, with an estimated record budget this year of 538 million euros, will account for end with its cultural flagship in the six main Spanish capitals by population volume: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza and Malaga, which is the sixth capital of Spain by population but the fifth by adding the metropolitan area, with more than a million inhabitants.
It will be its tenth CaixaForum, a cultural and scientific dissemination space that includes exhibitions, music, conferences and debates, social events and educational and family workshops. A network of facilities with great exhibitions for which Fundació la Caixa has signed alliances with some of the great museums and cultural centers in the world, such as the British Museum, the Pompidou, the Cinémathèque française or the Prado.
The mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, has assessed the decision as “a great step forward that places us at the level of Madrid, Barcelona and other large Spanish cities, a powerful initiative that strengthens, diversifies and completes our cultural offer. CaixaForum de Málaga was one of our longings and I am deeply grateful to Isidre Fainé for his decision and impetus to build it on such a strategic plot”.
The president of the La Caixa Foundation assured yesterday that “with the signing of this agreement we make our involvement with the city of Málaga, a city with a determined commitment to culture in line with our values ​​of working to improve the well-being and the progress of people”, and wanted to emphasize that “culture is a powerful tool that contributes to social cohesion and integration and our goal is to facilitate access to it for the citizens of today and those of the future “.
The deputy general director of Fundació La Caixa, Elisa Durán, emphasized that the capital of Málaga thus joins “the CaixaForum network, a unique model that aims to bring the diffusion of culture closer to all citizens, in a didactic way, with quality and rigor, to attract the most specialized public but also families, schoolchildren and people for whom approaching a cultural institution is still a barrier”.
The La Caixa Foundation has been in Malaga for 30 years, with the programming of its Science Tent in 1993. Since then, the organization has organized more than fifty exhibitions in the city. Samples ranging from Sebastião Salgado and Leonardo Da Vinci to the immersive musical experience Symphony under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel have been seen there.
