Barcelona Unions Resist Plan to Convert Picasso's Old Art School Into a Woody Allen Museum
A group, led by Barcelona’s Comisiones Obreras trade union movement, are fighting a proposal to turn Pablo Picasso’s old art school, the Escola d’Arts i Oficis de Barcelona, which is in the city’s Gothic quarter and is owned by the regional government, into a Woody Allen museum.
The building, built in 1775, has been empty since 2009, The Guardian reports. Before she was elected, the city’s mayor, Ada Colau, promised to reopen the building as an art school.
A friend of Allen’s, Jaume Roures, the head of the Spanish TV and film company Mediapro, proposed turning the former school into a museum, because it “would be like making another film together.” Allen filmed Vicky, Cristina Barcelona in the city in 2008, having received a million euros in funding from the city council.
Roures said Allen has “always known how to use humour and a critical spirit to describe society’s ills,” The Guardian reports. The trade unions say that a Woody Allen museum would be “geared towards tourists and not citizens.”
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.