In the city defined by Antonio Gaudí and other modernista artists, it’s not surprising to see that the edges of architectural innovation continue to be pushed.
The heart of Barcelona remains the old town – its narrow streets lined with creamy-coloured buildings that seem to lean in and look down at you. But as you begin to make concentric circles away from the core, new constructions rise in the landscape, creating a compelling contrast with the older buildings they stand alongside.
The Torre Agbar (above) for example is something I’ve only ever seen in movies about the future. I kept squinting at its rounded tip, expecting to see George Jetson zipping around in a bubbled rocket car. There is nothing else built around the Torre yet – despite what my photo seems to indicate – and understandably so. When you’ve built the skyscraper of the future, you can hardly place a squat government building next to it. The Torre can only stand shoulder-to-shoulder with something equally avant-garde.
The jutting glass crag and smooth cliff faces of the Edifici Gas Natural (right) stand near Barcelona’s beaches, mirroring the real earth and clay cliffs that might have naturally overlooked this spot ages ago. This building made me wish I was Spiderman, so that I could scale each surface with spongy fingertips and peer into the offices inside. Perhaps even hang upside down from the tip and see if the interior design matches the extraordinary exterior design.
Can you imagine working for the natural gas company? What does the world look like from the inside of a glass cliff? Is there ever a day when you walk towards the front door and you don’t stare at the wonder above with mouth agawp?
When we emerged from the Metro to see this white cross-hatched monolith (left), I could only stand there for a few moments with my head cocked slighly to the right.
“Do you think it’s real?” I wondered out loud. I even poked the air in front of me, as if the building was a paper cut-out strung on power lines as decoration. From my perspective, this building didn’t even look wide enough to accommodate people and desks and computers and conference tables. And what are those criss-cross beams made of? Sugar? They looked light as air from the ground.
And who gets stuck with the window washing?
On the last day of our vacation, we were staying at a posh (and discounted) hotel in the FIRA conference district. Wearily dragging my luggage behind me through the wide pedestrian crosswalk, I looked up to be surprised by this bright red hotel tower.
Like a clay vase with a pinched rim. But bigger. A lot bigger. Just waiting for a cosmic pour of warm water and a planet-sized star flower. It puzzled me to see people emerge from its front entrance, wearily dragging luggage of their own.
“Hold on, I need to get a geeky architectural snapshot.”
I loved Barcelona above all for its otherworldliness, whether evoked by the fantastic imagination of Gaudí or by the future-forward vision of its contemporary architects. Every new building forced me to tilt my head in a new way, to see the world from a new perspective.
Above all, Barcelona’s architecture got me to stand still and simply admire.
(Psst! Anyone else suspect that Tim Burton was inspired by Gaudí?)
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Barcelona – Look up, look way up
In the city defined by Antonio Gaudí and other modernista artists, it’s not surprising to see that the edges of architectural innovation continue to be pushed.
The heart of Barcelona remains the old town – its narrow streets lined with creamy-coloured buildings that seem to lean in and look down at you. But as you begin to make concentric circles away from the core, new constructions rise in the landscape, creating a compelling contrast with the older buildings they stand alongside.
The Torre Agbar (above) for example is something I’ve only ever seen in movies about the future. I kept squinting at its rounded tip, expecting to see George Jetson zipping around in a bubbled rocket car. There is nothing else built around the Torre yet – despite what my photo seems to indicate – and understandably so. When you’ve built the skyscraper of the future, you can hardly place a squat government building next to it. The Torre can only stand shoulder-to-shoulder with something equally avant-garde.
Can you imagine working for the natural gas company? What does the world look like from the inside of a glass cliff? Is there ever a day when you walk towards the front door and you don’t stare at the wonder above with mouth agawp?
“Do you think it’s real?” I wondered out loud. I even poked the air in front of me, as if the building was a paper cut-out strung on power lines as decoration. From my perspective, this building didn’t even look wide enough to accommodate people and desks and computers and conference tables. And what are those criss-cross beams made of? Sugar? They looked light as air from the ground.
And who gets stuck with the window washing?
Like a clay vase with a pinched rim. But bigger. A lot bigger. Just waiting for a cosmic pour of warm water and a planet-sized star flower. It puzzled me to see people emerge from its front entrance, wearily dragging luggage of their own.
“Hold on, I need to get a geeky architectural snapshot.”
I loved Barcelona above all for its otherworldliness, whether evoked by the fantastic imagination of Gaudí or by the future-forward vision of its contemporary architects. Every new building forced me to tilt my head in a new way, to see the world from a new perspective.
Above all, Barcelona’s architecture got me to stand still and simply admire.
(Psst! Anyone else suspect that Tim Burton was inspired by Gaudí?)