CosmoCaixa tickets
CosmoCaixa tickets open the Museo de la Ciencia CosmoCaixa, the science museum that the "la Caixa" Foundation runs in upper Barcelona. The modernista building housing it went up between 1904 and 1909 as a charitable asylum, and the museum reopened there under its current name in 2004. Sala Universo, the permanent exhibition, covers 3,500 square metres, most of it underground across floors descending to minus five.
What is included in the CosmoCaixa ticket?
What is included in the CosmoCaixa ticket?
The general museum ticket opens every permanent and temporary exhibition in the building, Sala Universo included. Programmed activities work differently, because screenings in the fulldome Planetarium, along with workshops, guided family visits and lectures, each carry their own activity ticket bought in addition to the museum one. Visitors buy the museum ticket here, on a page that runs in Spanish and Catalan with no English version. Sales close 30 minutes before the museum does.
Other things to visit in Barcelona
What can visitors see at the CosmoCaixa science museum?
Sala Universo
Sala Universo is the museum's permanent exhibition, 3,500 square metres running chronologically from the Big Bang to the human brain. It splits into three areas: Kósmos, which opens on a three-dimensional graph of the expanding universe; Evolución, entered past a bioreactor; and Fronteras, set under a dome shaped like a brain. The exhibition won the Kenneth Hudson Award in 2021.
Photo: "The Foucault pendulum at CosmoCaixa Barcelona" by Alberto-g-rovi (CC BY-SA 3.0).
The Bosque Inundado
The Bosque Inundado recreates a fragment of Brazilian Amazon rainforest inside Sala Universo, lush and warm, with around a hundred plant and animal species living in it. Sala Universo runs its route through it and through the Muro Geológico.
Photo: "Roots of the tree suspended in the CosmoCaixa Barcelona ramp well" by Alberto-g-rovi (CC BY-SA 3.0).
The Muro Geológico
The Muro Geológico lines up seven real rock slices cut from quarries, slopes and parks, together spanning 24 metres and weighing more than 90 tonnes. The materials run from potassium salts out of Súria and slate from León to volcanic rock from Olot, and each slice pairs with an interactive experiment showing the process that formed it.
Photo: "Engraved stone slabs on display at CosmoCaixa Barcelona" by Alberto-g-rovi (CC BY-SA 3.0).
The Planetarium
The Planetarium runs a rotating programme, projected across the full dome onto numbered seats. Screenings play in Catalan with translation into Spanish, English and French. Each one takes its own activity ticket in addition to the museum ticket.
Photo: "Upper storeys of the CosmoCaixa Barcelona facade" by Josep Bracons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Base Antártica
Base Antártica displays the original laboratory module of Juan Carlos I, Spain's first Antarctic base, restored and donated by the CSIC. The display follows the work of Josefina Castellví, the oceanographer who became the first woman to direct a scientific base in Antarctica, and sets it alongside National Geographic photographs of the continent.
Photo: "The CosmoCaixa Barcelona facade seen from below" by Txllxt TxllxT (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Lab Math
Lab Math reopened alongside Sala Universo as the museum's mathematics laboratory. Volumetric puzzles, three-dimensional mazes and geometric riddles carry the subject, which the museum frames as the toolkit behind everything else on display.
Photo: "An articulated wooden figure on display at CosmoCaixa Barcelona" by Alberto-g-rovi (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Plan your visit in advance
Opening hours
CosmoCaixa opens every day of the week, public holidays included, from 10:00 to 20:00, on one schedule that holds all year rather than splitting into summer and winter versions. Ticket sales stop 30 minutes before closing, so the last sale on a normal day goes through at 19:30. The museum names no separate last-admission time. Arriving ahead of that sales cutoff also leaves room for a Planetarium session, since nobody is admitted once a screening has begun.
General information for visitors
Accessibility, on-site services and venue rules shape the rest of a CosmoCaixa visit:
- Adapted restrooms sit on every floor, with reserved spaces for visitors with reduced mobility and reserved parking bays.
- The information point at the main entrance lends wheelchairs, subject to availability.
- The museum runs guided visits with audio description for blind and partially sighted visitors.
- Deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors have adapted visits, audiovisual content in Catalan sign language and a sign-language interpreting service.
- Adapted visits for visitors with intellectual disabilities come with an accessible guide in PDF or PowerPoint format.
- The Laie shop opens 10:00 to 20:00 from Monday to Friday, and 10:00 to 20:30 at weekends and on public holidays.
- The restaurant opens 12:30 to 16:00 at weekends and on public holidays, and 13:00 to 16:00 from Monday to Friday, while the cafeteria runs 09:00 to 20:00 daily.
- Visitors under 16 must be accompanied by a legal guardian or a responsible adult, and the museum may ask for proof of age.
- Exhibition rooms hold a constant 21 degrees Celsius all year, so a layer is worth carrying on warm days.
- Pushchairs are allowed in the exhibition rooms, while scooters and bicycles are not.