The Museu Blau space covers 9,000 m² and spans two floors. It features modern installations and facilities for all sectors of the public. Its immense, free-access hall is the start and finish point for all the Museum´s programmes and services: the benchmark exhibition «Planet Life», the temporary exhibition areas, the Media library, the Science Nest for children aged 0-6 years, the lecture rooms, the conference hall, the workshops, the cafeteria, the restaurant and the shop.

Herzog & de Meuron, the architects of the original building, also designed the new Museum premises and the museography of the «Planet Life» exhibition, a journey through the history of life and its evolution in tandem with our planet, and a portrait of the present day. This exhibition opened starting with its core, ‘The Earth today', a display of 4,500 exhibits from the Museum's heritage collection. It is the largest display at the Museum in terms of floor space. Two sections of the exhibition have since been inaugurated: ‘The biography of the Earth' and ‘Life Laboratories'.

The core of the exhibition, ‘The Earth today', presents a comprehensive view of nature, encompassing all the natural sciences disciplines. It offers a unique museographic approach and incorporates the most up-to-date interactive and audiovisual resources. This new amenity has made it possible to display hidden treasures from the collections of an institution that dates back 132 years and holds three million specimens, many of which are of great scientific and historical significance in the fields of mineralogy, petrology, palaeontology, zoology and botany. It is an exhibition that centres on the natural heritage of Catalonia and its most immediate environment, the Mediterranean, but also displays significant material from other regions of the planet.

The Museu Blau is a new cultural icon for the city, an innovative centre where scientific rigor is combined with popular science, recreation with learning about nature, and leisure with a serious look at today's environmental issues.