Pictures of Las Arenas

As I promised on a previous post, I went checking the newly refurbished former bullfightring of Las Arenas, now transformed by Richard Rogers and his team in a shopping mall.
The most remarkable technical achievement was removing the land under the building structure in order to enable the access to the shopping mall from the streetlevel: the ring had been built on top of a little hill, so as the hill was digged away, the whole building had to be suspended by hidraulic cranes in and reseated on metal beams that are currently receiving the structure wheight. Quite unique!



Appart from this technical progidy, the inside of the mall looks like any other. Of course, very modern, but in my opinion too full of post-modern big tubes and metal pipes. The stores selection is similar to any other shopping mall in town (but since it's not that big, some brands such as Zara are missing).

What noone should miss, however, is the ride to the top floor where an outstanding balcony has been open for visitors to enjoy the city views. The panorama overlooking Plaça Espanya is spectacular, but the rest of the city views are also worth seing.
A needle-looking spire has been attached to the bullfight ring as an alternative access to this vantage point.


Would you like to learn more about Barcelona contemporary architecture? Take one of my contemporary architecture tours!

Innaguration days!

As locals say... when the local elections approach, plenty of things are innaugurated. And that's what's happened last week, when two main brand new sites have just been open.

The first one I want to talk about is Las Arenas shopping mall, former bullfight ring that after 3 decades of beeing closed is finally starting a new life and it's called to become a very popular shopping and food hub that will definitely be appreciated by the visitors of the Montjuïc Hill aswell as the participants to the many trade fairs organized in Fira Barcelona. There will also be a wonderful gim with a spa (to be open in May) and also the Museum of Rock, that will definitely become a must for teens and modern music lovers.
By the way, contemporary architecture lovers will be pleased to know the building was refurbished following a project by Richard Rogers. Do you want to learn more? Take one of my contemporary architecture tours!


The other big site is the brand new Museum of Sciences (also called Blue Museum, because it's hosted inside the triangular blue building at the Forum by Herzog & De Meuron - again, good news for contemporary architecture lovers!). This new museum is the result of the renovation of the former Museum of Zoology and Museum of Geology that used to occupied buildings from the 1888 World Fair in the Ciutadella Park. Now their collections and presentations have been modernised and they are going to become a new pilgrimage point for any visitor interested in sciences aswell as for many families with kids.

I'm planning to visit both of them as soon as possible, so stay tunned for more posts on them!

Contemporary architecture for students

Now that is low season and I have time to put my blog upto date, I'd like to share I enjoyed giving 2 contemporary architecture tours for student groups in December.

One of them was for the Lycée Jeanne d'Arc de Montaigu (France). The kids were doing a project on sustainable developpement, and had taken Barcelona as a remarkable example of how a city can grow sustainable. They were interested in seeing how our local Agenda21 program was affecting the city.

To their request, we visited the Sant Martí district, which has changed a lot these last 20 years or so. First, the Olympic Village - former industrial area transformed into a residential + beach/marina/leisure area for the 1992 Olympics.

Then we went to the Forum area, that suffered a major redesign for the international event of the Forum of Cultures in 2004 and now is a main congress hub (with meeting buildings, hotels, offices...), as well as a must-see place for anyone interested in the latest contemporary architecture.

Diagonal Mar Park

Next we followed the Diagonal Avenue up-the-street crossing two signature parks (Diagonal Mar by Miralles & Tagliabue, and Central del Poblenou by Jean Nouvel).

We then explored the area that is going through a transformation process right now - the 22@District, underneath Diagonal Av. from Forum to Glories. We learnt how old industrial architecture is being restored and adapted to new uses, and how brand-new buildings are being created using the latest green technologies.

We finished, coudln't be otherwise, with the breathtaking Agbar Tower - also conceived taking into account environmental points.

Parc Central del Poblenou

The other one was for the students of Fanshawe College (Canada), with whom I spent 2 days touring Barcelona and had specially requested to include as much contemporary architecture as possible. So one afternoon we also went to the Forum and walked up Diagonal Avenue. Being design students their favorite sites there were the two parks, where they couldn't stop taking pictures! However, we were quite exhausted from a long day walking around the city, so after the second park we decided to take the tramway back to their hostel, which was walking distance from Agbar Tower, by the way.

I had done a few Contemporary Architecture Tours before, but it was the first time I did it for young people, and I must say it was a very challenging but rewarding experience!

48h Open House Barcelona

This weekend many remarkable buildings in town open their doors to share its architecture and history with the locals. A great opportunity to enter places that are often just seen from the outside.

Being so busy with tours, I could only manage to save one morning and now I'm in the 22@ district with my architect friend Eva enjoying the latest architectural projects in town. We've been so far in the refurbished old factory of Can Framis, now housing the fascinating collection of contemporary painting of the Fundacio Vilacasas (http://www.fundaciovilacasas.com), now we are waiting for the tour in Indra to start and later we'll go to the Mediatic headquarters. What an exciting morning!

Next year they'll be repeating it and I'm not missing it! More info: http://www.48hopenhousebarcelona.org

Do you want to discover more local Contemporary Architecture? Take my Contemporary Architecture tour!
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I learnt more on contemporary architecture with the Arquibus

From october 1st to 8th is taking place in Barcelona the city's architecture week: Archiset.
One of the many activities organized around the event is a bus tour around some of the most representative sites that have received the Barcelona architecture price, the FAD.

I followed the tour with a friend of mine, Eva Palacios, who is an architect, because I wanted to learn more things that I could use in my Contemporary Architecture tours. So far, my tours have covered the "star sites" by big international architects such as Jean Nouvel, Richard Rogers, Frank Gehry and so on. Now I'll be able to add a few more sites by Spanish architects that might be interesting for highly specialized clients.

Ivan, the architect-guide, was very professional and helpful, although we were disappointed to see that due to the Barcelona RedBull Air Race, a big part of the itinerary had been cancelled and nothing had been previewed to subsitute it... Well, at least after the tour Ivan was happy to answer all our questions on the sites we were most interested in.

You can still take the tour until October 8th (although there might be problems with the tour on the 7th due to the bus strike).

More information about the Arquibus tour here (in English).
More information on the other Arquiset Week activities here (Spanish only).

Good news for contemporary architecture lovers!

Contemporary architecture lovers are lucky now in Barcelona! So many things are going on!

First of all, two very interesting exhibits:

- Richard Rogers & Architects | From the house to the city, at Caixaforum until June 6th.
- Toyo Ito (2001 - 2009), at Casa Asia until May 29th.

Plus this last architect just innaugurated a brand new luxury apparthotel in Passeig de Gràcia. Located in front of Gaudí's La Pedrera, it dialogues with it with a façade inspired in the waves of the ocean.

Are you interested in learning more about the city's contemporary architecture? Check out my specialised tours, and this past article of my blog.

This month: Two Contemporary Architecture Tours

Data: 23/10/2007 16:36 Nombre de comentaris a la fotografia:0 Veure la fotografia

This month I've given two specialised Contemporary Architecture tours, a 5-hour private one for the designer Galina Zbrizner, and a 3h tour for a group from a Norvegian firm.

Both tours included the main focus of Contemporary Architecture in town, the Forum of Cultures, as well as the AGBAR tower and the Calatrava bridge, and with Galina we also explored other areas such as the Barceloneta, the Olympic Village, Diagonal Mar, the 22@ District, the Parc Central del Poblenou, the Plaça de les Arts and Montjuic, and I also provided her with information on other works in progress that will become landmarks in a near future.

This album includes a selection of the best contemporary architecture in town, including some other sites that we didn't visit in this month's tours. Enjoy!