MUHBA – Barcelona City History Museum
Over 2,000 years of city history in one of the Gothic Quarter’s most iconic spots and other locations around the city
The MUHBA tells the story of more than 2,000 years of Barcelona’s history, from the Roman settlement known as Barcino to the present day, through a series of archaeological finds and interpretation centers of key works and sites in the city’s life.
If you want to explore Barcelona’s evolution in a visual and informative way, the MUHBA offers a virtual Historical Map of Barcelona that lets you travel through the city’s history without moving an inch!
Barcelona Bus Turístic, on the Hola Barcelona app
Your app for visiting the city with the Barcelona Bus Turístic: routes, stops and the most iconic places. A comfortable way to carry your tickets too!
Walk through the underground of medieval Barcelona
Inaugurated in 1943, the MUHBA is the city’s museum dedicated to preserving, documenting, sharing, and exhibiting Barcelona’s historical heritage. Although its main site is in the Gothic Quarter, specifically in the Casa Padellàs—one of the buildings forming the Monumental Complex of Plaça del Rei—the MUHBA has centers spread across the city’s neighborhoods.
The MUHBA also includes several heritage centers throughout the city’s districts, allowing history to be told in the very places where it unfolded, such as the Temple of Augustus, the Jewish Quarter (Call), or Park Güell.
The underground visit lets you walk through the streets of Roman Barcelona, get close to the ancient wall, enter a 2nd-century AD dye workshop, or see the remains of the city’s first Christian community. In the Palau Comtal area, there’s a permanent exhibition on medieval Barcelona (8th–13th centuries), and from there you can access the Saló del Tinell and the Chapel of Santa Àgata, two Gothic spaces that host temporary exhibitions.
Why is the MUHBA located here?
Its origins date back to 1931, when the opening of Via Laietana required the relocation of Casa Padellàs, a 15th-century Gothic palace, from Carrer de Mercaders to Plaça del Rei. During the foundation work at its new location, significant remains of ancient Barcino were discovered, leading to an ambitious archaeological intervention across the square that continued until the Civil War.
Meanwhile, in 1932, the Royal Palace in the same square was recovered, and later, the Saló del Tinell was restored—a hall with six semicircular diaphragm arches, the most impressive of their kind ever built in Europe.
How to get to the MUHBA?
The Gothic Quarter stop on the Red Route of the Barcelona Bus Turístic is one of the best entry points to explore the Gothic Quarter and Plaça del Rei, where the MUHBA’s main site is located.
For the curious
- Casa Padellàs wasn’t originally in Plaça del Rei; it was moved there in 1931 when Via Laietana was opened. It was one of many buildings relocated or modified during the rehabilitation of what we now know as the Gothic Quarter.
- It is said that when Columbus returned from America, he was received by the Catholic Monarchs at this very spot.
