The most ancient museum in Barcelona  |   1874 -2024   |   

The first director of the Museum was Dr. Jaume Almera (1845-1919), who was introduced to the world of geology by J. J. Landerer, a geologist and astronomer from Tortosa, who taught him practical geology (Morella region) and sponsored his entry into the Société Géologique de France in 1877. In 1885, commissioned by the Barcelona Provincial Council, he dedicated himself to the preparation of the geological map of the province of Barcelona, ​​which is still in common use today and has been highly praised by both national and foreign scientists. In 1898, he managed to get the Société Géologique de France to hold an extraordinary meeting in Barcelona, ​​in which the Museum played a prominent role. Almera published important paleontological monographs on Miocene fossils and on the Pliocene terrain near Barcelona, ​​which today have almost disappeared due to urban pressure. His name is perpetuated in the new CSIC building, designed in 1965 and inaugurated later. 

Upon his death, the Museum went through difficult times, since the person who had been recommended as the future director, Mn. Norbert Font i Sagué, had died in 1910 due to typhus. Font i Sagué was a prominent scientist, the introducer of speleology in Catalonia and author of a Geology Course in Catalan.

In 1926, Josep Ramon Bataller (1890-1962) assumed the direction of the Museum, continuing the work of Dr. Almera. During the Civil War, the institution suffered total devastation, and Bataller undertook its heroic reconstruction. In addition, he became the first professor of Paleontology at the University of Barcelona (1955), an honorary doctorate from the University of Toulouse and a member of several scientific societies. His research career highlights studies on Mesozoic fossils, which are of paramount importance, especially his work on Cretaceous corals. He maintained a prominent relationship with the Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME), identifying fossils and studying and drafting several sheets of the national geological map at a scale of 1:50,000. In 1951 he joined the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). The link between the CSIC and the Museum reached its maximum development with his successor, Dr. Via, with the creation, in 1966 and within the Museum itself, of the CSIC's Biostratigraphy Section.

In 1962, Dr. Lluís Via (1910-1991) replaced Dr. Bataller as director of the MGSB. Dr. Via had been Dr. Bataller’s assistant professor. His doctoral thesis, awarded the extraordinary prize, was on the crabs of the Spanish Eocene, a field in which he became an internationally renowned specialist. During his directorship, the Museum was enriched in all aspects, both materially —with new facilities— and scientifically, with more display cases and a specialized library, and efforts were made to open it to scholars and rigorous enthusiasts. During his term of office, the Museum’s centenary was duly celebrated.

After the death of Dr. Via, the direction of the Museum passed to Dr. Sebastià Calzada, specialist in Cretaceous brachiopods and gastropods, who received his doctorate in 1975 with a thesis on the brachiopods of the Cretaceous of the peninsular Levant. Calzada is the author of numerous articles of a paleontological nature and promoted the Museum's outreach, especially abroad, through specialized magazines, insisting on research and its subsequent dissemination. In this sense, it is worth highlighting the work of Professor Francesc Carrasco (echinoids), Ramon Mañé (1921-2018) (fish), Mrs. Magrans i Ferrer (Paleozoic fauna), Dr. Antoni Abad (Eocene fauna) and Joan Corbacho (trilobites from Morocco). In addition, he promoted and consolidated the Association of Friends of the Museum (1994) with the help of Mn. Santiago Casanova (1922-2011), a collaborator of the Museum since the time of Dr. Bataller and first president of the Association. He also facilitated the creation of the Sala Carles, for educational purposes, inaugurated in 2000 by Josep M. Asensi.