Barcelona's iconic Tres Xemeneies (Three Chimneys) thermal power plant - celebrated by architecture enthusiasts for its brutalist architecture silhouette and enjoyed by locals for the clandestine nudist beach at its feet- is carving out a new place on the city's cultural agenda. A major transformation into a media hub is set to follow.

Inside Three Chimneys, and the venue's future

It has been 15 years since Three Chimneys ceased operations, abandoned by Spain's national power company as its infrastructure became obsolete and its environmental impact increasingly untenable. Since then, the complex has become a symbol of an earlier Barcelona, before the city's transition towards renewable energy and legislation that curtailed development along the coastline.

Its three 200-metre-high, sand-coloured chimneys rising against the Mediterranean are often the first landmark seen by visitors arriving by air. In recent years, events including the Manifesta Biennial, open-air cinema screenings and, most recently, an exhibition responding to the themes of the 2026 UIA World Congress of Architects have drawn curious visitors to the site. For the most part, however, it has remained an extraordinary urban void.

Architecture practices MARVEL and Garcés de Seta Bonet Arquitectes have been commissioned to transform the complex into Catalunya Media City, a major hub for research, education, exhibitions and congresses. Recognising that Three Chimneys is Barcelona's defining industrial landmark, the architects aim to preserve as much of the existing structure as possible while opening the site to the public with new green spaces, pedestrian promenades and direct access to the beach.

A new transparent rectangular volume will extend south from the turbine hall towards the sea, accommodating the site's new programme while leaving the historic structure largely intact. Strategic cuts through the existing building will improve circulation and strengthen the relationship between old and new. Jordi Garcés, co-founder of Garcés de Seta Bonet Arquitectes, explained: 'We have designed a proposal that works through connections and knots, temporal, landscape and territorial.'

The project also follows passive design principles. Energy generation will come from 4,500 square metres of rooftop solar panels, while the north-facing façade will incorporate terraces and balconies overlooking the River Besòs and neighbouring Badalona. 'These architectural elements at different heights will offer new perspectives of the city,' stated Garcés. 'As if it were a piece of land art.'

uia2026bcn.org

BD Barcelona has unveiled a reissued collection of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí’s furniture pieces. Each design is an exact replica of Gaudí’s work, reproduced using traditional methods, highlighting the craftsmanship and beauty of the furniture's solid varnished oak.

Discover Antoni Gaudí furniture by BD Barcelona

Gaudí’s original designs were intended for two of his most notable projects in Barcelona: Casa Calvet, which was constructed between 1898 and 1899, and Casa Batlló, which was completed in 1906 (and recently opened a new art space).

Casa Calvet was Gaudí’s first residential project, and received a Best Building award from Barcelona City Council in 1900. Two years later, Gaudí designed the oak furniture for the ground-floor offices.

Unesco World Heritage Site Casa Batlló, on the city’s Passeig de Gràcia, was Gaudí's renovation of an urban house into one of the city’s most notable buildings, and he also designed a set of furniture for its dining room.

Both buildings acted as a canvas for the architect to create furniture that was dynamic, elegant and functional, while echoing the interior architecture.

The pieces sit between the baroque and the surreal, and comprise a range of seats and benches, a coat hanger and a mirror. They are an embodiment of Gaudí’s architecture: full of movement, with oak surfaces and chair legs twisting and entangling to evoke the shape of a tree and its branches. Each piece is unusual, rooting itself in the architect’s connection to nature.

Each reissue in the BD Barcelona ‘Gaudí’ collection comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the director of the Sagrada Família, Gaudí’s most famous work. The original furniture designs, meanwhile, are currently preserved at the Gaudí Museum in Park Güell.

bdbarcelona.com

Casa Batlló, Antoni Gaudí’s inventive art nouveau house in Barcelona, has opened a new contemporary art gallery to coincide with the centenary of the iconic Catalan architect’s death – and the Unesco-UIA designation of Barcelona as the World Capital of Architecture 2026.

The 230 sq m exhibition space, Casa Batlló Contemporary, is designed by emerging local architecture and design studio Mesura. It is located on the building’s second floor, within rooms previously inaccessible to the public.

Step inside the new Casa Batlló Contemporary

Designed by Gaudí between 1904 and 1906 as a remodel of an 1877 building, Casa Batlló is a Unesco World Heritage Site and one of Barcelona’s biggest tourist destinations, having opened for public tours in 2002. It is remarkable for its organic, flowing, and decorative architecture, known as ‘modernisme’ – a Catalan version of art nouveau.

Major refurbishments of the building took place in the 1970s and 1990s, but Gaudí’s unique vision has remained throughout the years, with preservation and restoration efforts ongoing.

The new gallery occupies space historically used as residential apartments and later as a conservation and maintenance workshop. Now, it is a place for the public to engage with contemporary art in a storied architectural landmark. The space will host two exhibitions per year, each seeking to explore Gaudí’s vision through new thinking and creativity.

Maria Bernat, director of Casa Batlló Contemporary, explains that the project ‘required an intervention that could engage the present while respecting the building’s legacy’. She believes Mesura’s design honours Gaudí’s spirit of experimentation, craftsmanship and material innovation while having its own ‘distinct character’.

Mesura was careful to balance the desire for creative contemporary architecture with the need for historic sensitivity. ‘Our approach was not about adding, but about listening,’ explains Carlos Dimas, partner at Mesura. ‘We understood the project as a dialogue with Gaudí’s work rather than an imposition upon it.’ The team embraced Gaudí’s guiding philosophy of architecture as a living organism, deeply connected to nature.

The primary gesture in the space is a rippling, metallic ceiling, inspired by a drop of water falling onto a calm surface. It references the Mediterranean Sea that Barcelona faces, and is reflective of the wavy lines so central to Gaudí’s nature-inspired geometry. Metal was chosen for the way it reflects light and evokes water, behaving ‘almost like a liquid surface, constantly changing’, says Dimas.

To create the ceiling, Mesura collaborated with Oxido Studio – a local specialist in engineering, craftsmanship and digital production. Together, they adapted an industrial process commonly used in the automotive sector, impulsion-based metal-forming, using a robotic arm to mould 1.2mm-thick aluminium sheets into undulating shapes based on the form of concentric ripples.

The topography also strengthens the lightweight material: ‘On their own, the metal sheets would lack rigidity,’ says Dimas. ‘But by introducing this rippled, three-dimensional geometry, the surface gains structural strength. The curvature and relief stiffen the metal, allowing the ceiling to support itself without heavy secondary frameworks.’

The other new element in the space is a floor made from microcement, which when completed in May 2026 will be green, picking up on hues in the mosaic-covered façade and deepening the connection to nature. Its smooth, calm surface is designed as a counterpoint to the dynamic ceiling above.

Mesura collaborated with the Casa Batlló team to research the house and its architecture – including Gaudí’s use of materials and colour. The in-house restoration team, led by architect Xavier Villanueva, carefully recovered and restored original elements of the space, including woodwork and windows.

Intervening in Gaudí’s masterpiece was ‘both a privilege and a responsibility’, says Dimas. ‘Gaudí is not only a reference within our profession; he is a cultural figure who transcends architecture and forms part of our collective identity [in Barcelona]. His work has shaped the soul and imagination of the city.’

Casa Batlló ‘carries an extraordinary historical and symbolic weight’, he adds, ‘and working within it requires an understanding that the building itself must always remain the protagonist’.

The refinement of Mesura’s architectural intervention reflects this thinking, but was also intended to leave space for the exhibition works to communicate with the public. The gallery’s inaugural show is ‘Beyond the Façade’ (31 January – 17 May 2026) by London-based Matt Clark, founder of United Visual Artists; it brings together light studies, projections and kinetic sculpture.

The exhibition expands upon an audiovisual projection-mapping artwork that Clark has produced for the building’s façade, Hidden Order (being shown on 31 January and 1 February). Continuing a series of artistic façade mappings bringing Casa Batlló’s exterior to life for the public, this projected work explores the idea of the mysterious order within nature that influenced Gaudí; a deep logic beneath the chaos.

mesura.eu

casabatllo.es

A Barcelona apartment set in the vibrant Mediterranean city's heart, overlooking the Collserola Natural Park, Capitán House transforms 108 square meters into an inventive study of geometry, light, and colour. The project is the work of Septiembre Arquitectura, a studio known for precise, poetic interventions that balance simplicity with surprise and a strong sense of material clarity.

Inside a Barcelona apartment built around geometry and flow

Here, the architects – Damián Figueras, Patricia Parra, and Germán Ribera – took a deceptively simple approach: establishing a central 'square' anchored by a circular island, a move that organises the apartment’s setbacks and defines its main social spaces. 'It focuses on the sequence of experiences that unfold as you move from the central square into the rest of the apartment,' says Figueras. Variations in ceiling height and colour gradually reveal distinct atmospheres, reinforcing the idea of movement and transition.

The 'square' is articulated through a continuous band of stained birch built-ins, which both structures the plan and frames daily life. At 2.2 meters, a perimeter shelf runs uninterrupted, functioning as a bookshelf that encloses the space. Below that datum, the band shifts programmatically, forming kitchen cabinetry, a dining and living bench, and storage. This birch envelope also encourages discovery: when panels are opened, a vivid red interior emerges. Pantry, cabinetry, and a central corridor are saturated in this colour, leading to three bedrooms along diagonal sightlines that visually connect spaces in unexpected ways and lend a sense of depth to the compact plan.

The narrative continues in the bathrooms, where microcement floors and lower walls provide a tactile, grounding element, while tiles in greens and pinks wrap upper surfaces and ceilings. Mirrors and carefully placed lighting animate these materials, producing subtle shifts that change throughout the day. Each room becomes a small, immersive experience that reveals layers of hues, form, and light.

The material palette reinforces the balance between bold gestures and quiet elegance. Natural walnut flooring, custom birch furniture, and white Macael marble countertops offer warmth and restraint, grounding the more dramatic chromatic moments. 'As the doors are gradually opened, new colours and materials are revealed, creating the feeling of inhabiting different places within the same home,' notes Parra.

'The layout revolves around a large, calm square that becomes the social heart. Around it, supporting functions act as a bridge between the ideal and the real,' adds Ribera. More than an apartment, Capitán House becomes a compact canvas for a joyful everyday lived experience.

septiembrearquitectura.com

Pasta house Relleno has been shaping a new visual rhythm for casual dining since its launch in Madrid in 2023. Its formula – freshly made, fast-delivered filled pasta, paired with a tongue-in-cheek attitude (‘Your palate is our muse’) – quickly seduced devotees of Italian tradition across the Spanish capital.

Relleno, Barcelona

What began as a delivery-only operation has now materialised into a bold flagship in Barcelona, where comfort meets futurism, and the brand’s ethos (‘Maximalism served daily’) becomes spatial. Local studio Isern Serra took Relleno’s name (meaning ‘filling’ in Spanish) almost literally, crafting a sculptural envelope of foam-filled cushions wrapped in metallic fabric, arranged as a padded grid across the walls.

‘Each piece, through its shape and materiality, evokes the idea of filled pasta, establishing a direct link between the product and the space that contains it,’ says studio founder Isern Serra. The immersive two-storey space opens with a cavernous entrance: a five-metre-high volume lined with stainless steel digital kiosks and an ordering counter, over which hangs an inox lamp by French artist MLK Furniture.

‘The architectural elements were designed not only to be aesthetically compelling but to narrate the brand’s story through form and material,’ Serra adds. As the ceiling drops, the atmosphere shifts into something more intimate. Diners sink into poufs upholstered in the same metallic textiles, while a glowing lightbox at the rear – echoed again on the upper level – bathes the space in a colour that can be adjusted to suit the mood.

Upstairs, a sweeping custom-made sofa snakes through the room, anchored by circular stainless steel tables and bespoke stools by MLK Furniture. The padded grid continues across the ceiling, while mirrors and RGB fixtures animate the periphery with shifting reflections. At the centre, an existing structural pillar has been transformed into a sculptural stainless steel table, ringed with vivid orange stools.

Relleno is located at Via Augusta, 39, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, 08006 Barcelona, Spain.

A new look and feel is breathing fresh life into one of Barcelona’s largest and most recognised hotels. Set in a 44-storey skyscraper of glass and steel, Hotel Arts was originally built for the Olympic Games in 1992. It’s a waterfront landmark in the Catalan capital – and New York-based design studio Meyer Davis is now transforming it from head to toe, in a multi-phase renovation that aims to create appeal for a new era.

Meyer Davis unveils a new look for Hotel Arts Barcelona

The first milestone – unveiled in summer 2025 – was a redesign of the property’s nearly 500 bedrooms and suites. All are exterior-facing, offering vistas across either the Mediterranean coastline or the city and its mountainous backdrop. A view-centric philosophy therefore lies behind the redecoration: half the rooms are now themed ‘mountain’, with an earthy, fertile colour palette, while ‘sea’ rooms feature soft blues against sandier tones.

Svetlana Samardzic, senior associate at Meyer Davis, says one of her main objectives was to break down internal walls, allowing natural light to fill the sleeping, living and bathroom spaces. Mirrored interiors also accentuate the sense of openness and light, with reflections of the outdoors visible from nearly every angle. ‘Now, when you open the door, the view is right there,’ says Samardzic. ‘That’s the wow moment.’

This area of Barcelona was once known for textile production, explains Will Meyer, co-founder of the design firm whose wider hotel portfolio includes projects for Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Rosewood and W. His team drew from this local trade heritage when creating elements like the upholstering of their custom-made armchairs. ‘We looked at the different weaves and textiles made here,’ Meyer says, ‘which inspired our layering and patterns.’

Other designers have also created bespoke pieces, all evoking marine life: Ayus Design has crafted lampshades from sugarcane sculpted into shapes inspired by waves, while turquoise-coloured wall sconces by SkLO are moulded to resemble floating buoys. Translucent aquamarine tables by Extra Ordinario are made of lava stone, featuring glazed crackled tabletops, while hand-tufted rugs by Spanish atelier Nanimarquina are embossed with a pattern recalling droplets of water.

Catalan creatives bring a flavour of local creativity – like ceramicist Rosa Cortiella, who has created decorative clay pieces, and artist Lorena Canals, who has designed abstract textile wall hangings hand-woven by artisans in India. Smart new tech installations, meanwhile, support greater eco-consciousness: Lutron systems automatically switch a room’s energy supplies off when guests leave, and taps for osmotised drinking water reduce needless bottle usage.

The rooms are just the start of Hotel Arts’ overall revamp, estimated for completion in 2027; valued at 220 million euros, it’s set to be Spain’s most expensive hotel renovation on record. It will include a reworked layout merging indoor and outdoor space and a wellness centre spread across four floors; new F&B spaces will add to the existing gastronomical offer, which currently includes Paco Perez’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant Enoteca.

These aren’t the only changes afoot in this part of town: the multimillion-euro redevelopment of the surrounding Port Olímpic district includes new docking, walkways and leisure spaces. ‘The city is trying to redefine that area,’ says Meyer, ‘and the hotel is one of the most important features.’

Hotel Arts Barcelona is located at Carrer de la Marina, 19-21, Ciutat Vella, 08005 Barcelona, Spain.

An ice cream craving is always latent, waiting for its cue. In Britain, it's roused by the toy-like chime of vans drifting through suburban streets – fairgrounds on wheels, plastered with cartoon cones and sun-bleached decals. The visual identity is maximalist and celebratory, yet the product itself remains restrained: the archetypal 99, a neat swirl of soft-serve crowned with the simplicity of a Cadbury Flake. It's at once both impulsive, yet ritualised.

In contrast, Italy could not be more different. Gelato is a passeggiata companion, its flavours artisanal and refined: pistachio, nocciola, stracciatella, amarena. Counters stretch wide, vitrines gleam, and pozzetti lids conceal the craft beneath polished steel. Each portion is shaped with a flat paddle rather than scooped: a fleeting moment of theatre, as opposed to a mere transaction.

The context of ice cream has always been inseparable from the experience of eating it: a mirror of history and culture. In Turkey, dondurma is dense and elastic, sold from brass-trimmed carts where fez-wearing vendors tease customers in playful routines. In India, kulfi is pulled from conical moulds at vividly painted stalls. In Mexico, tiled paleterías brim with rainbow ices and fruit sorbets dusted with chilli or chamoy.

Each country has long held to its aesthetic codes. But in recent summers, a new wave of parlours has emerged. Here, architects and designers approach ice cream as stagecraft, creating experimental environments that are as sensorial and inventive as the flavours themselves.

The evolution of the ice cream parlour

In Odessa, Tanu (‘Таю’ is Ukrainian for ‘I’m melting’) reframes the ice cream shop as a space of grown-up composure. Sivak+Partners resisted the usual pastel kitsch, instead wrapping the interior in undulating stainless-steel panels that ebb and flow like frozen liquid. What might have felt sterile was softened through finish: ‘Thanks to its matte, worn texture, the metal ended up resembling velvet or fabric on the walls,’ says studio founder Dmytro Sivak.

‘There’s no loud, boisterous music or children’s birthday-party vibe,’ Sivak adds. ‘Rather, it offers a calm and pleasant weekend serenity.’ This is a parlour where ice cream is contextualised as an adult ritual, not a sugar rush.

In a similar vein, El Equipo Creativo aimed to create something more grown-up for the design of Barcelona’s Gelato Collection by Spanish chef Albert Adrià. ‘We wanted a space that offered more than just ice cream, where each flavour would be presented as a collectable jewel,’ shares Natali Canas Del Pozo, co-founder and creative director of the studio, which borrowed aesthetics from perfumeries and jewellery stores for the project. The centrepiece is undoubtedly a glass display case designed like a block of ice.

Walls are lined with champagne-toned porcelain tiles, a material choice that echoes the creaminess of gelato. Overhead, octagonal glass light fixtures emit a cool glow. The entire design slows consumption: you don’t grab and go, you approach the counter as though entering a gallery. Adrià’s numbered, ever-changing flavours – recent ones include ‘balsamic candy,’ ‘hibiscus margarita’ and ‘mango green curry’ – are almost treated like precious stones.

Nearby, Amiko Gelato (also in Barcelona) takes a more exuberant, lush and playful approach. Masquespacio pushed Miami Art Deco into the future with pastel geometries, sculptural seating and a shifting play of light. Tropical greenery floods the room, set against ceramics, microcement and metal, creating a deliberate clash between nature and industry. ‘Organic forms and sculptural elements, directly inspired by ice cream, are seamlessly integrated into both the furniture and décor,’ explains Borja Sánchez Marín, product designer at the studio. The effect is lushly immersive, a sensorial oasis rather than a pit stop, sitting at the intersection of juvenile and mature.

Similarly, at The Dreamery in London, ice cream is recast as part of a longer, more indulgent ritual, while ensuring an immersive element: you stay for a glass of wine, under a ceiling mural that dissolves into infinity. English artist Lucy Stein created a canopy of folkloric creatures painted on unryu rice paper, backlit and reflected by three mirrored walls. The result is an enveloping dreamscape that makes time feel suspended.

The material palette – cement-coloured tiles, stainless steel bar, vintage Brutalist sconces by Marino Poccetti – sets a restrained stage, allowing the ceiling to dominate. ‘We wanted somewhere comfortable and playfully innocent,’ co-founder Alex Young says, ‘a retreat of sorts from cynicism and seriousness.’ Traditional English sweetshops informed the design, but nostalgia is filtered through sophistication.

Elsewhere, designers are looking at the past to inform the future of the ice cream parlour, while tuning it into a creative adult ritual. Scooped by Demetres at Square One in Toronto plays with cinematic artifice. ‘We were inspired by the simple, pared-down sets of 1940s and ‘50s films like The Gang’s All Here and An American in Paris, which used design elements like half-height partitions and gestural, line-painted backdrops that disrupt the vastness of the studio sets and ask the audience to use their imagination,’ explains Kfir Gluzberg, founder and principal at Kilogram Studio.

Fluted glass clad with mirrored film refracts light and movement, while perforated steel panels, lacquered with a soft pink automotive finish, shimmer under changing light. This choreography is deliberate: with no colourful tubs on display, attention shifts to the reveal of the scoop itself. ‘The lack of one clear focal point and the monochromatic palette draw heightened focus on the moment the ice cream is revealed,’ the architect notes.

Meanwhile, Gelato Messina’s Sydney outposts show how retro language can be sharpened into a contemporary brand identity. The Newtown site – described by Sans-Arc Studio as ‘a bit retro, a bit 1970s, but also a bit shiny’ – works with a narrow footprint, squeezing circulation around the central freezer. The architects borrowed cues from diners and mid-century gelato bars: timber panelling, a black-and-white chequered floor, and compact counter lines.

In Redfern, the diner influence is pushed further: cork wall panels and spotted gum bullnose battens hug bright orange light boxes, giving a vivid postmodern pop to the brand’s pint-sized offering. The atmosphere is cheerful yet disciplined, part retro homage, part contemporary riff. For Sans-Arc, each Messina outpost is an opportunity to evolve the brand language across multiple sites: ‘developing it over several spaces, improving and becoming more unique with time.’ Here, the parlour becomes an iterative brand experiment rather than a one-off showcase.

The new ice cream parlour occupies a threshold: between child-coded nostalgia and adult sophistication, between memory and reinvention. Designers are not erasing the kitsch traditions of the past, but translating them into new forms: velveted steel, jewel-like vitrines, dreamscape ceilings. The result is a typology redefined by tension; playful yet serious, indulgent yet reflective. Ice cream becomes both an artefact and a stage, suspended between different life stages.

And in each, the ritual itself is re-engineered. Whether through conceal-and-reveal, immersive theatre or sensory overload, ice cream is no longer a snack, but architecture’s most playful act of indulgence.

Jaç Hi-Fi Café is a new place to stop for coffee and surrender to sound. Designed by Isern Serra Studio, the Barcelona opening invites visitors into a Mediterranean interpretation of Japan’s revered jazz kissa. The name Jaç, which nods to jazz and recalls the Japanese listening bar, means ‘to recline, rest, and let go’ in Catalan. The project combines coffee and acoustics to create a setting where time feels recalibrated.

Jaç Hi-Fi Café, Barcelona

The 95 sq m interior is arranged as a sequence of tactile environments. At the entrance, a lounge introduces the palette with a concrete sofa softened by beige cushions, a sculptural Akari E lamp by Isamu Noguchi for Vitra, and custom walnut tables finished with lacquered beige tops. Stools by Noo.ma and an artwork by Chidy Wayne offset the neutral microcement shell with contrast and colour.

The bar functions as both counter and acoustic instrument. Crafted from a single monolithic slab of walnut by Fusteria Vidal, it doubles as a speaker cabinet, with shelving for vinyl, a baked-goods display, and custom Bloom Island speakers carved from the same timber. The uninterrupted grain runs across cabinetry and speaker fronts, binding architecture and sound into one continuous surface.

At the centre, a stainless steel communal table designed by Serra introduces a brutalist edge softened by the warm tones of surrounding wooden and metallic stools. Its reflective surface catches the light of Antoni Arola’s Lámina pendant for Santa & Cole, which hovers with sculptural precision above, amplifying the table’s role within the plan.

The rear alcove delivers the most immersive encounter; produced by Fusteria Vidal, the walnut installation curves across the wall and ceiling to form a semi-enclosed listening zone. A cylindrical column divides shelves filled with vinyl, while stainless steel Bloom Island speakers project finely tuned sound.

Cushions and low tables extend the invitation to linger, illuminated by the Disco wall lamp by Jordi Miralbell and Mariona Reventós. Smaller gestures reinforce the intimacy, including a four-seat window niche, discreetly integrated bathrooms, and a façade in iroko wood stained to match the walnut interior.

Coffee is roasted in-house, sourced from carefully chosen farms that highlight the character of each origin; matcha tea comes directly from two growers in Japan, found by Jaç owners Arnau and Lígia. Breakfast at home is the inspiration: tomato toast with Iberian cold cuts, pastries based on family recipes, and ingredients bought from the tienda de toda la vida – the traditional, family-run stores.

Jaç is located at Av. Diagonal, 335, L’Eixample, 08037 Barcelona, Spain.

The story of Carmen is famously marked by death. Written in 1875 by composer Georges Bizet, the opera’s title character is presented as both a powerful force and a troublesome seducer. In its traditional telling, Don José is haplessly led astray by Carmen; her murder at his hands framed as the result of her own actions. It has been reinterpreted many times over the years, most recently, by artist and filmmaker Wu Tsang, whose experience as director at Zurich’s Schauspielhaus brings a rich insight into live performance.

Tsang has been researching the story for the last eight years, culminating in an opera-theatre hybrid show with interdisciplinary artist group Moved by the Motion, and a film installation that has recently premiered at MACBA in Barcelona (until 3 November 2024). The film installation ‘La gran mentira de la muerte’ takes death as its central theme, exploring the multiple ways in which this threads through Carmen’s story. In the creation of these works, Tsang has studied both flamenco and classic interpretations of the opera and wanted to build a bridge between them as someone straddling multiple art forms.

‘Carmen has always drawn me in,’ she tells me. ‘There are all these different associations we have in the pop culture imagination about Carmen. For over a century we have been continuously drawn to her character. Many different people have claimed this character: she’s feminist, or she’s a symbol of freedom. She’s also a conduit for all kinds of misogyny because in the story she’s always sacrificed. She has to die because of what she represents, because of her freedom.’

For ‘La gran mentira de la muerte’, Tsang has invited collaborative performers to reinterpret the story: flamenco dancers Rocío Molina, José ‘El Oruco’ and Yinka Esi Graves; performance artist and dancer Tosh Basco; and bullfighter Vanessa Montoya. She is particularly interested in the parallels between flamenco and bullfighting, which in different ways exude death as performance.

‘There are many deaths in Carmen. The most obvious being her own. I was also thinking about filmmaking and the capture of performance as a kind of death,’ says Tsang. ‘As a video artist, I’ve been focused on performance filmmaking for a number of years, and I like to think of ways in which the film can interpret the experience of the performance. Flamenco is something that in its essence challenges the idea of being captured. It’s a very live art form.’

For the film’s multi-channel, spatialised sound, Tsang looked to the tension and suspense created by music in horror movies. Music has also been an important factor in retelling the story for the stage, with composers Andrew Yee and Asma Maroof’s new theme for Don José reflecting his jealousy as a driving factor within the original plot. This reasserts his autonomy and violence within the story, rather than focusing upon Carmen as the disrupting force that has somehow corrupted him. Tsang notes how even Carmen’s theme, played when she enters the stage, serves to highlight her as dangerous.

‘She represents a kind of non-Europeanness, as a gypsy who participates in an alternative lifestyle,’ says Tsang. ‘What does it mean in the Western, European sense for someone like her to be both the hero and be sacrificed? What is our obsession with needing to kill a person like her?’

‘La gran mentira de la muerte’ (The big lie of death) is at MACBA in Barcelona until 3 November 2024

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Although Barcelona is mostly famed for the organic, ornamental architecture of Catalan Modernisme, a countermovement called Noucentisme also emerged in the early 20th century, instead championing values of reason, order and clarity. In contrast with the bohemian wave of Modernisme pioneered by Gaudí and his peers, the Noucentista style rejected indulgently decorative aesthetics in favour of a classicist approach to design that was rational and sober.

Tour the Grand Hotel Central, Barcelona

This was the style that appealed most to Francesc Cambó, a wealthy politician and philanthropist who commissioned the architect Adolf Florensa to design a seven-storey building on Barcelona’s Via Laietana in 1926. Today, it’s the Grand Hotel Central, which London-based studio Sagrada has redesigned for its opening under new ownership this summer – and the original owner’s residence and private rooftop garden remain at the top.

Believed to have been Barcelona’s first building with a lift, it’s also among the very few in the city influenced by the Chicago School of Architecture. Sagrada’s director, Juan Álvarez says he sees this in elements like the simplicity of the facade (unlike heavily decorated facades of Modernista buildings) featuring multiple wide windows in a grid arrangement.

The designers at Sagrada – known for their work on London’s Arts Club and the St Regis Hotel in Venice – wanted to evoke a flavour of the Noucentista principles of clean lines and understated colours to their custom-made decoration for the Barcelona property’s 147 bedrooms. A wall made of long, narrow timber slats divides the room, while a repeated vertical pattern is also found in the headboard, consisting of upholstered panels – some blush pink, others chalky green – set within a wooden frame.

But rather than submitting entirely to the sobriety of Noucentisme, Alvarez says his team also wanted to bring a touch of fun to the space, with the curved, organic shapes of the coffee table, chaise longue and wooden minibar unit making a break from the straight lines. Cambó’s gardens inspired the patterns embroidered into the cushions and the sides of leather-seated hexagonal stools.

The rugs feature abstract, geometric patterns, while other designs are inspired by original pieces from Cambó’s home, such as the wooden boiserie in the walls, the cornices in the ceiling and the double-doored, fold-out mirrors. There are also talks of opening the Cambó residence and garden to the public - but in the meantime, there’s a new rooftop bar right by them, while the family’s original grand library is used for literary events.

Grand Hotel Central is located at Via Laietana, 30, Barcelona, grandhotelcentral.com

Suburbia and the American Dream are perpetually connected, the former’s seemingly uniform pristineness acting as a primary signifier of all that the latter promises. For close to a century now, the two have been celebrated, criticised, performed and marketed across literature, art, film, and advertising, while the material pillars of picket-fenced neighbourhoods have been emulated by architects and city planners around the world.

‘I remember as a child being glued to the television, asking my mother why Americans lived in such big houses, surrounded by lawns, with a couple of cars in the garage,’ recalls Spanish journalist Philipp Engel, the curator behind ‘Suburbia. Building the American Dream’, on show at Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (until 8 September 2024). ‘There was always [in these shows], the exterior shot of a house, very similar to the photos in real estate agency windows.’

‘Suburbia. Building the American Dream’ at CCCB

An exhaustive survey into the ‘suburban desire’ generated largely by American pop culture, the exhibition employs photography, painting, audiovisuals, literature and everyday objects to examine how these archetypal residential areas became so prevalent in the States and so widely duplicated elsewhere, concurrently addressing aesthetics while engaging with their social, geographical and political characteristics.

Relaying his entry point, Engel suggests that it’s ‘a subculture with abundant literature. I started at the beginning, which according to Crabgrass Frontier author Kenneth T Jackson, could be Brooklyn of 1814, when the ferry line was inaugurated.’ Indeed, despite misconceptions owing to the swell of attention that post-war suburbia initiated, gated communities began emerging in tandem with the country’s Industrial Revolution. Split into five sections, the exhibition opens with this burst of segregated infrastructure in ‘Planning a Dream’, while rooms such as ‘The Residential Nightmare’ and ‘Post-Suburbia?’ follow.

‘The idea was to answer the question of why Americans live in suburbia, from the most diverse angles,’ continues Engel. ‘Explaining the causes and consequences, showing that this lifestyle of the single-family home did not arise by chance, but was planned to generate an ideology in contrast to others that could be considered anti-American. Quickly we saw that we could structure our discourse through a multidisciplinary exhibition, because although it can be described as imperialist, American culture and imagination are immensely rich and fascinating, largely due to their ambivalence. They offer the best and worst, sometimes at the same time.’

Additionally, he remarks, ‘There is a strong tendency in the collective imagination, to believe that suburbia has been frozen since the 1950s, when the reality is complex. In the exhibition, for example, we contrast Trump’s “suburban dream” speeches with Weronika Gęsicka, an artist working with images intended for advertising in the 1950s, distorting them with Photoshop.’

Moreover, beyond Gęsicka’s surreal visuals, an unintentional but ultimately rewarding discovery for Engel was the wealth of photography that honours the subject, and it subsequently became the exhibition’s principal vehicle for storytelling. ‘I come from cinema and literature, and while some things were clear, what I didn’t see coming was that photography by great authors would become the dominant artistic medium,’ he says.

Works by Gregory Crewdson, Joel Meyerowitz and Ed and Deanna Templeton are amongst those that highlight suburbia’s homogeny, while images from Bill Owens’ highly acclaimed 1973 book Suburbia are, significantly, granted a whole room. ‘He was the first to photograph his neighbours, in the early 1970s, and so his work is the heart of the exhibition,’ observes Engel.

Later on, a collaboration with Barcelona-based urban planner Francesc Muñoz ties the exhibition to its immediate surroundings, ushering in a more scientific approach that scrutinises ‘very revealing’ data about water consumption in the region.

Meanwhile, considering the broader impact of Spain’s relationship with suburbia, the curator returns to his observations about what we consume via our screens as he hypothesises about what comes next. ‘For decades, suburbia was a landscape we only saw on television, but there are more and more developments around Spanish cities, and families leaving the centre for the periphery, often convincing themselves they are going to improve their lifestyle with very American arguments,’ he considers. ‘But there is a sustainability problem, and we need to explore how it can be solved, because what we see in the USA always ends up coming here.’

‘Suburbia. Building the American Dream’ is at Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona until 8 September 2024, cccb.org

This year, iconic Spanish design brand BD Barcelona was relaunched by Apartamento, Bofill Taller de Arquitectura, and Arquitectura G, who together have set out to explore its heritage while building a future legacy in collaboration with some of today’s most exciting creatives. 

Among the first steps of the brand’s rebirth is the relaunch of Oscar Tusquets’ Gaulino chair and wider furniture collection. One of BD Barcelona's original founders in 1972, Tusquets had spent time in Milan as part of his work with architects Federico Correa and Alfonso Milá, visiting Triennale in his free time with Gregotti and philosopher Umberto Eco. 

Gaulino by Oscar Tusquets for BD Barcelona

The collection started with the Gaulino chair, designed by Tusquets in 1987. Inspired by Antoni Gaudí and Carlo Mollino (hence the name blending the two design icons), the chair merged sensual lines with a modern approach to furniture design, a mix of imagination and rigorous creation.

Over time, the first Gaulino design erupted in a fully-fledged collection, including a lighter version of the chair, the Gaulino Easy, the Gaulinetta, a slender model without arms (that nods to Enzo Mari's Tonietta chair), and the Gaulino stool. 

Using the same design codes, Tusquets also designed a series of coffee and dining tables, the Carlinas, with smoked glass tops, and the Gaulino table, with a classic wooden top. A series of bookcases completes the collection. The range is made of ash wood, with distinctive black stained option, a natural varnished solid ash and coral red lacquer. 

The Gaulino designs represent BD Barcelona’s innovative spirit, and its founders' visionary attitude towards design and furniture. The new owners promise to bring the same approach to the brand, in close collaboration with Tusquets but also together with some of the most exciting names of the new generation. 

bdbarcelona.com

For Sabine Marcelis’ latest collaboration with La Prairie, the Swiss brand that transforms some of the world’s most precious ingredients – caviar, diamonds, platinum – into luxury skincare products, the designer has created a sculptural display tray and applicator to accompany its Skin Caviar Luxe Cream.

Marcelis is best known for her innovative approach to diffusing light. Idiosyncratic shapes crafted in resin and glass are made soft and welcoming through playful, reflective and translucent effects – see her donut-shaped lighting for her Ikea 'Varmblixt' collection, or her glass and stone intervention at the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion.

She has collaborated numerous times with La Praire, including in 2019, when she served as a mentor to six students taking part in the La Prairie x ECAL competition for young designers; and in 2022, when she mentored five young female artists taking part in the La Priaire-sponsored, The Women Bauhaus collective, which aimed to celebrate and perpetuate the legacy of the women behind the Bauhaus movement. 

Sabine Marcelis interprets La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Cream

This year, Marcelis debuted her most ambitious collaboration with the brand yet: an installation at Art Basel 2023, inspired by La Prairie’s new Skin Caviar Luxe Cream and its distinctive blue packaging.

She created an immersive experience, The Colbalt House, which invited visitors to enter a cobalt glass-walled corridor that led to a second, cream-coloured space filled with some of her designs (including her first-ever sofa).

‘As with all my projects, materiality is the most important player and inspiration. The two spaces can only exist because of the material qualities exploited in both settings,’ says Marcelis of the installation.

‘The cold, intense blue glass even [adds to] the acoustic experience, where sound bounces around the hard-surfaced geometric grid of panels. And [then there’s] the contrasting super-organic cream interior with objects void of any sharp edges, made from a variety of soft and veloury fabrics. The material tactility, the acoustics, the colour, the way the space envelops the visitors – it all plays a role in the total experience.’

Next up from the collaboration is Marcelis’ capsule collection of objects to accompany the new Skin Caviar Luxe Cream, which launches in September 2023 exclusively at Selfridges. The new iteration of the cream comes in two distinct textures – a Luxe Cream that is rich and velvety, and a Luxe Cream Sheer that is light and airy. Marcelis has designed a display tray and a stone applicator that nestles inside.

‘This was the first time for me to work on a product that is in such close proximity to the body,’ says Marcelis. ‘The capsule collection includes a spatula to apply the cream with. It also acts as a gua sha tool. We had to make sure the material (natural stone) was completely suitable for use on the skin. 

‘This was the most challenging part for me, as the decision is completely out of your hands – the lab test results defined whether we could use the stone or not – luckily, the test results were in our favour! 

‘I think you are always racing a bit against time with projects like this  – but there is nothing quite like a good deadline to give a project the right momentum. It was an absolute pleasure to work with the La Prairie team and I’m very proud of what we achieved.’ 

laprairie.com

The story of the founding of BD Barcelona is the stuff of legend: a group of architects, hanging out late one night in 1972 at iconic Barcelona club Boccaccio, decided to start a design brand involving their artist and designer friends. Producing work by the likes of Ettore Sottsass and Vittorio Gregotti (then relative newcomers), as well as reissues of works by surrealist artists Antoni Gaudí and Salvador Dalí, Boccaccio Design (later renamed BD Barcelona) became a creative sensation. Its extensive catalogue has seen some of the world’s most celebrated creatives populate its pages, from notable greats like Álvaro Siza Vieira and Alessandro Mendini to more contemporary designers like Konstantin Grcic, Doshi Levien and Jaime Hayon.

BD Barcelona: 'our beginning was humble but showy'

The brand was originally founded by the members of architecture practice Studio Per: Pep Bonet, Cristian Cirici, Lluís Clotet and Oscar Tusquets (with Mireia Riera joining the company as interior designer). ‘We were influenced by Milanese architects,’ explains Tusquets, who had spent time in Milan as part of his work with architects Federico Correa and Alfonso Milá, visiting Triennale in his free time with Gregotti and philosopher Umberto Eco. ‘We noticed that Milanese architects were also designing objects and furniture, so we were inspired to create tables and chairs, but then nobody in Spain was interested in manufacturing our work. So when we completed our architecture studies in the 1960s, we decided to do it ourselves, produce our own projects.’ Their beginnings, says Tusquets, were ‘humble but showy: our designs were crazy!’

They found inspiration in Italian design not only as a creative entity but also as a business model, admiring ‘the Italian tradition of that fantastic dialogue between designer and manufacturer, a relationship based on respect and enthusiasm’.

Over the years, the members of the founding team have left no design stone unturned: from reissues of Charles Rennie Mackintosh works to extruded aluminium airport-style seating, they put together a catalogue that enthusiastically mixed functionality with artistic expression.

‘If you grew up in Barcelona, their designs were everywhere,’ says Nacho Alegre, co-founder of design magazine, publisher and creative agency Apartamento. In 2022, he and fellow founders Omar Sosa and Marco Velardi, together with architects Pablo Bofill and Hernán Cortés of Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura, and Igor Urdampilleta of Arquitectura G, acquired a majority stake in the company, working closely with Tusquets to revive the brand. ‘The old generation of BD are all in their 80s. They wanted to give the lead to the next generation, and they chose us,’ says Pablo Bofill.

Each of them has a personal story connecting them to the company. Having grown up at La Fábrica (the late Ricardo Bofill’s home located in an abandoned cement factory outside Barcelona), Pablo Bofill’s early life was filled with BD Barcelona designs. ‘For my family, there was BD and nothing else,’ he says. ‘It was not one of the references, it was the only furniture reference that was around. It has been part of my design education from birth.’ Urdampilleta, meanwhile, moved to Barcelona to study architecture in the early 2000s, and was so inspired by the work produced by BD that he became friends with Tusquets, who also became an influence on his work.

The future of BD Barcelona

They insist this is not a financial operation (as Bofill puts it, ‘it’s not that we just decided to buy this company, we aren’t bankers looking for an investment’), but a way to work together and develop something creative as a group. ‘It’s a story of friends wanting to do something good,’ says Bofill. ‘This is an excuse for us to be together at an age when you don’t have so much time to develop friendships. It’s about working on a vision we all had.’

The company’s first outing in its new guise will be at this year’s Milan Design Week, with a redesigned brand identity by Apartamento Studios and an exhibition of historical works, showcased on a set designed by Urdampilleta, at the Milanese outpost of international art gallery Peres Projects. The future of BD is filled with excitement and plans that, for the most part, the group is not quite ready to announce yet. ‘Taking the catalogue as a reference, we hope to reach the same level of excellence as during the brand’s golden era, in the 1970s and 1980s,’ says Urdampilleta. ‘It’s not about rebranding but about redesigning and redefining.’ Some names that will form the new generation of BD include the likes of Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen, Max Lamb, Philippe Malouin and Sam Chermayeff. ‘It’s an excuse to be in touch with the people that we admire from our generation,’ stresses Bofill.

More ideas on the horizon include producing some of the archives’ most loved pieces (a series of reissues by Tusquets is planned for 2024) and adding new names to the roster, bringing BD to the forefront of contemporary design conversations. Says Alegre: ‘Now the game is to find our taste in common, and to have fun.’

Archival works by BD Barcelona will be on show from 17-23 April 2023, at Milan Design Week

Peres Projects
Piazza Belgioioso 2
Milan

bdbarcelona.com 

A version of this article appears in the May 2023 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

‘I hate it that people are so clean, we are exterminating the spiders! Where are the spiders?’ It was an unexpected answer to a question asked to Tomás Saraceno about whether his latest artwork is child-friendly. But Saraceno does not think – or make – the expected. This installation, Cloud Cities Barcelona, is no exception – seemingly soaring into the Catalan sky from a height of 125m, it fills the 360-degree viewing platform inside the summit of the Mirador Torre Glòries, designed by Jean Nouvel and Fermín Vázquez.

Saraceno’s practice also leads to unexpected responses; weaving between architecture, ecology, sculpture, and invention, there are recurring themes, including the aforementioned spiders. For his takeover of the cavernous Palais de Tokyo, the Argentine-born, Berlin-based artist (and 2018 Wallpaper* guest editor) ‘collaborated’ with 500 live spiders filling the space with their webs. And in Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi, he constructed a weblike structure, trapping large geometric pods, which now reads as a scale model for this enormous intervention.

His other overarching interest is clouds, and the delicate, disappearing ecologies they represent. Since 2002, his Cloud Cities series has explored porous modes of utopian, networked inhabitation as large-scale, interactive sculptures. Inspired by the post-war radicals like Buckminster Fuller, Yona Friedman, and Archigram (‘Peter Cook was my professor for one semester,’ Saraceno recalls), he seeks within these reflexive environments to consider ways of finding new relationships to each other, nature, and architecture.

Cloud Cities Barcelona is the most complex work in the series yet. A carefully composed cradle of slender cables wrapping the light-filled loft – three office floors transformed into one space to facilitate the structure – is not solely a sculpture to gaze at alongside panoramas of Barcelona, but a unique, interactive experience – for those who dare.

After squeezing through a small opening, a tunnel formed of geometric panels is ahead, though the destination remains unknown. It is an unreliable passage, slippery underfoot, occasionally moving as an unknown stranger elsewhere struggles within, and at times claustrophobic – in a space barely larger than an adult body, the only way to progress is sometimes to clamber up or down.

It is tiring and disorientating. Soon a feeling of simply being within, with vertigo in each direction, takes over.

Some of the 113 pods offer cushions as an invitation to pause from the struggle, to relocate oneself within structure and city, maybe flicking through one of the numerous books on form, politics, and nature that Saraceno has laid around what he considers a ‘reading space’. ‘When at university in Argentina, I was living in a very small apartment and it was impossible to study – me, my brother and sister in one room. The only way to study was to go to a public library, which opened all day and night. For me, I have great respect [for] public libraries in cities.’

For Saraceno, this is not just a touristic spectacle of adventure and city views, but a provocation towards a new type of space for thinking and learning. It’s a permanent installation, which eventually he wishes residents to ‘use as a public square’, and proposes that one day, instead of the current entrance fee, someone could turn up and ‘show a book, or say, “I want to read one inside”‘ for free entry; he talks of a space that ‘you can have access [to] because you need it – you need a space in the city’. With nature’s clouds disappearing due to climate change, Saraceno speaks of how such networked webs could also be constructed outside, wrapping around existing glass buildings to provide internal shade, as well as a new kind of explorable civic space.

Saraceno’s studio contains numerous workers, rooted in collaboration and ingenuity in ways he hopes can benefit the non-artistic world beyond. One of his architects, Tomas Charil, explains that each of the 256 cable-connecting joints in Cloud Cities Barcelona is unique, outputted from the 3D design through a software script. The engineering required to create such tiny detailed elements, as well as how the meshwork interjects into and connects with the building’s existing structure, is impressive and, for something which reads as so ephemeral and light, is incredibly robust and resilient. 

In commissioning Saraceno, the building’s new owners may have been expecting a more conventional touristic viewing experience. Instead, only the most intrepid and agile explorers will find their path through. Saraceno tires of art that is experienced at speed, ‘maybe for a selfie, see it, check it, next. It’s painful.’ Cloud Cities Barcelona is not that, requiring physical labour, and then a desire to pause, perhaps to read a new book, or have an unexpected conversation with a nearby stranger within the web-cloud. Or maybe it’s just a space to stop and look from within a man-made cloud down, through nature-made clouds, and towards the city grid below – a space removed, other, and freeing.

INFORMATION
studiotomassaraceno.org

miradortorreglories.com

A twisting mass of woven bamboo winds its way around the interior of the newly revamped Casa Loewe Barcelona, stretching across the ceiling and down a series of pillars. Yūgo (or Fusion), as the ethereal installation is called, is the handiwork of Japanese bamboo artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, who has taken the family tradition and run wild with it. 

Chikuunsai IV has used 6,000 strips of tiger bamboo (torachiku) – a treasured variety with a decorative stripe that only grows in one valley in Kōchi Prefecture on the Japanese island of Shikoku and is becoming rarer by the day. 

‘Climate changes are casting a shadow over these tiger bamboo groves,’ says the artist, who is known for creating vast installations for art institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Odunpazari Modern Museum in Turkey, and the Guimet Museum in France. ‘The soil there has been affected by environmental pollution and global warming, showing detrimental results in the beautiful outer layer of tiger bamboo.’ Once some 100 families tended the bamboo grove, but now only three people are left – a decline in the trade that Chikuunsai IV wants to reverse while raising awareness of nature’s fragility. ‘My hope is to preserve such beauty for future generations,’ he adds. If it isn’t trimmed, the bamboo doesn't develop its distinct stripe, it only grows green.’

Normally Chikuunsai IV would visit a site to learn about its history and soak up its atmosphere before working on a design, but Covid-19 restrictions meant he had to work on the fly when he arrived in Barcelona. His diaphanous installation for Casa Loewe Barcelona is a fusion of natural forces and the fluid forms of Loewe’s bags and clothing. Like with all his installations, he made it without using glue, relying instead on bamboo’s high tensile strength to support the structure. The strips can be dismantled and reused at a later date.

Yūgo is joined in Casa Loewe Barcelona – one of the brand’s gallery-like stores bringing together craft, art, design and fashion – by other feats of artisanship, including a large macramé sculpture by Catalan artist Aurelia Muñoz, which plunges from a ceiling on the lower floor, and an amorphous Dangling Hairy Hug by South Korean artist Haegue Yang beside the entrance. Among other design hits inside the building, built by Catalan modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, are chairs by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld and tables by Axel Vervoordt, offset by 16th-century furniture and a staircase with railings inspired by the Arts & Crafts designs of William Morris. Works by Loewe Foundation Craft Prize finalists abound, including Japanese ceramic artists Sakiyama Takayuki and Tomonari Hashimoto.

Like many of the makers that the foundation and the Loewe brand support, Chikuunsai IV is expanding the possibilities of his medium. Bamboo craft stretches back at least 1,000 years in Japan, and his great-grandfather, Chikuunsai I, was the first of the family to take up the art of weaving it 120 years ago. Each generation has pushed the medium in new directions. Chikuunsai IV, who was born in 1973 and works in a studio in Sakai – a port city in the Osaka area – began learning basic weaving techniques even before he went to primary school, later studying sculpture at Tokyo University and apprenticing with his father. Like others in his family, he makes baskets and table-top sculptures, but he is the first to work on room-sized pieces.

‘Tanabe Chikuunsai IV is a one-of-a-kind artist in the Japanese bamboo art scene,’ says his gallerist Philippe Boudin. ‘He is continuing a tradition but imbuing it with an avant-garde approach and creating installations on a monumental scale.’ With his daughter Zoé Niang, he runs Paris’ Galerie Mingei, which helped facilitate the Casa Loewe Barcelona installation and is exhibiting smaller works in its space at 5 Rue Visconti (until 28 May 2022).

For the Japanese, bamboo is more than just a material – and a highly renewable one at that. It has strong cultural roots and inherent spiritualism, says Chikuunsai IV. ‘It gives the Loewe store a sacred quality,’ he adds – fitting for a newly reopened temple to craft and fashion.

INFORMATION

loewe.com

ADDRESS

Casa Loewe Barcelona
Paseo de Gràcia 35
08007 Barcelona

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When Odile Decq won the competition to create a state-of-the-art residential tower off Barcelona's Avenida Diagonal, the prospect was exciting – not least because this would be her French architecture studio's very first high rise in Decq's over 40-year long career. It was also a scheme filled with challenges. ‘There already was a concrete skeleton in place, which was not adequate, so we had to partially demolish it and then add to it in order to create the tower and meet the brief's spatial requirements,' the architect explains. 'We needed to plan complex foundations very carefully and add volume and expand.' Decq did, and with poise, and so Antares was born, the Catalan capital's newest piece of luxury residential architecture.

Antares is home to 88 apartments, ranging from studios to four-bedroom units and duplexes, and two penthouses at the top. Everything in it is bespoke, controlled to perfection and crafted by Decq, who enjoys designing holistically – from architecture and building shell, to communal areas, interiors, lighting, and even details such as staircase treads and the kitchen island. The double height entrance lobby is a good example of this approach, including mirrored ceilings that make the space feel even more dramatic, while also featuring a chandelier created especially by Decq, along with customised furniture.

Creating her first tower was also a challenge in itself. ‘I wanted to change the typology's perception and try not to make it this straight, vertical thing, but give it an undulation and dynamism, make it elegant,' she explains. To achieve this, Decq added long wavy terraces that wrap around the façades, and give the impression of movement against the blue Catalan sky. Swathes of bespoke, highly crafted glazing on the balustrades help to that effect, reflecting the surroundings and opening up the interiors towards view of the cityscape, sea and mountains around Barcelona. 

A low, angular, geometric pavilion – in the bright red colour that often appears in Decq's works, although here she was inspired by Miró and Gaudí, she says – is installed in the residents’ garden, connecting the high rise to the street level below and weaving it into its surroundings. There's also a restaurant (with interiors also designed by the French studio) that occupies part of the tower's ground level and enhances this link to the Barcelona bustle. 

Two swimming pools are the highlight of the residents’ amenities. One is below ground, moody and dark, featuring a stainless steel mirrored ceiling that makes a swim there a mesmerising experience; the other sits at the very top, on the open air roof garden, looking towards the Mediterranean beyond its infinity edge.

‘I am in love with my project,' Decq smiles, clearly pleased with the result. ‘Every idea I have put in it was carefully thought out and works well. It’s what I call global design; it goes from the big to the small scale, it's all-encompassing. I was not originally asked to do all that, but it made sense. Now, everything is coherent. I like that level of involvement with every one of my projects, but of course you cannot do this without a good client, like this one,' she concludes.

INFORMATION

odiledecq.com

Creative studio Six N Five unveils its new office space in Barcelona, created in collaboration with designer Isern Serra. A long-term Wallpaper* collaborator, Six N Five was founded by Ezequiel Pini, and specialises in digital images, creating surreal fantasy worlds that push the boundaries of CGI.

Six N Five Barcelona office design by Isern Serra

Serene and luminous, the L-shaped office design is defined by a neutral colour palette throughout and is created as a multifunctional space for the studio’s team as well as visitors. The street-facing entrance leads to a showroom and exhibition space and a café by local roastery Three Marks Coffee. This space will become the stage for a cultural programme led by Six N Five, opening it up to the city.

Behind a set of theatre-like curtains, an open corridor leads to the creative studio, conceived as an oasis of calm and featuring bespoke furniture and a raw material palette characterised by the original concrete structure of the building. 

The team’s space is divided into a relaxation area with a custom-designed sofa (upholstered with the same fabric used for the curtains, explains Serra, to achieve a sense of uniformity and connection throughout), placed alongside the ‘Mineral’ coffee table by Ferm Living and the ‘Pacha’ lounge chair, a 1970s design by Pierre Paulin produced by Gubi.

Facing a set of floor-to-ceiling windows is the workstation, centered around a bespoke table that was made on site using masonry and finished with micro cement. The large desk faces a series of bookcases showcasing prototypes and objects that inspired the surrealist world of Six N Five.

The last space in the studio is the kitchen, separated once again by thick curtains and featuring a custom-designed kitchen with a Dekton worktop by Cosentino, a bespoke table produced by local joinery workshop Carpintería J Vidal, and chairs by Ton. Lighting throughout is by Spanish brands Vibia and Santa & Cole.

‘Earth tones are chosen to reinforce this idea of materiality and achieved through the use of micro cement on the floor and the functional elements. The same texture is attained on the walls using the same tone of paint with an irregular plaster base,’ says Serra. ‘The space was conceived as a large architectural sanctuary, where the imprint of craftsmanship is very present.’

INFORMATION

sixnfive.com

isernserra.com

At the rate he’s going, Nobuyuki Matsuhisa may as well hang up his celebrity chef’s pins and put on the permanent mantle of a luxury hotelier.

For now, all eyes are on Barcelona where the Rockwell Group’s Madrid and New York studios have converted the 1970s pile that was formerly Gran Hotel Torre de Catalunya into a freshly minted Nobu outpost. The handsome 259-room property soft opened late last year and a fleet of 43 suites – occupying the 6th to 22nd floors – came online recently, ready for travel post lockdown.

Of the latter, a warm sense of the Japanese aesthetic pervades, particularly in the Umi and Sake suites, which Rockwell has layered with woven cane, wall panels inked with calligraphic waves, lashings of bronze, delicate porcelain vases, slender timber slatted screens. In the plush 22nd-level Nobu suite, a particularly stunning rendition of a tea-pot is suspended over a stonecast fire-pit alongside four window bays with unrivalled views of Barcelona and the Mediterranean.

ADDRESS

Av. Roma 2-4 

Barcelona

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In a new wave of thinking about bricks and mortar retail, innovative brands are reimagining the physical store beyond its four walls, creating spaces where merchandise looks more like art.

The newly opened Darial store in Barcelona’s Dreta de l'Eixample neighbourhood is a leading example of an experiential lifestyle outpost, boasting a carefully curated edit of fashion, furniture, art and books, as well as a brassiere-style restaurant. The concept was imagined by founder and creative director Djaba Diassamidze, the brains behind his eponymous ready-to-wear label, which offers sophisticated avant-garde womenswear. And equally, Darial’s 16,000 sq ft space carries a sense of Diassamidze’s flair that translates through the ground floor of Casa Tomàs Roger.

Through a series of high-ceilinged arches, the space is visualised as a gallery concept, interweaving retail categories that flow naturally into one another. Gold-finished palm tree pillars stand bold against the white cube walls, while plush ivory carpets and black lacquer finishes seem reminiscent of an art deco film set.

Ready-to-wear offerings from over 100 brands can be found through the raw concrete vaults, from established names such as Loewe and The Row to up-and-coming brands such as Isaac Reina and Qasimi. Brands will also be available to buy online later this month with the launch of the e-shop. Meanwhile, furniture and design objects by the likes of Impossible Project and Bang & Olufsen are nestled within the fluid retail space. Custom-fitted wooden shelves serve a pared-down inventory of rare books and tomes, which tie together influential pieces across the art, design and fashion worlds.

Following the ceiling adorned with gold leaf sees the Le Léopard restaurant, which seats up to 70 visitors on the 19th-century banquettes upholstered in red velvet. The contemporary eatery serves a twist on French, Italian and Spanish cuisines, as well as offering an extensive list of classic and natural wines.

The last of the expanse sees a cloister-like gallery space, which can be used to host temporary art exhibitions and artist collaborations.

INFORMATION

darial.com

ADDRESS

Carrer d'Ausiàs Marc 37,
08010 Barcelona

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For some reason, the typology of most homes is that of a single volume in which are gathered all living spaces and utilities. Which makes this family home by the Girona-based studio Arquitecturia a rather fascinating case study in thinking, literally, out of the box.

Located in a residential neighbourhood in Catalonia’s St Cugat del Vallès, the Barcelona House presents itself as four shimmering cubes of varying proportions that loop around a central courtyard. Like the classic Balinese home that’s comprised of several salas, each volume here is dedicated to a specific function, whether bedroom, kitchen or living room.

Clad in silvery corrugated sheets, these volumes fit together like Tetris-blocks, their interiors linked to one another by glass corridors that double as light-wells and conservatory. Meanwhile, the buildings’ southern orientation, together with strategically placed awnings, allowed the architects to insert oversized vitrine-like windows and doors.

As a result of so much diffused lighting coupled with the extensive use of white walls and lightly-hued cross-laminated timber fittings, there is a dreamy sense of floating, especially when the windows and doors are all open for cross-ventilation.

The greenery, especially inside the house, is no accident. The client, says Arquitecturia’s co-founder Olga Felip, had ‘a very special sensitivity for plants and she wanted to find a place inside the house where she could show off her Ikebana. So, we started thinking from there.’

On several fronts, the Barcelona House represents something of a highwater mark for Felip and her co-founder, Josep Camps, the latter noting that the project has pushed the 12-year-old studio into a new series of designs that explore the relation between nature and gardens and interior domestic spaces. ‘Proximity to nature improves our quality of life and we are exploring how to achieve this in domestic spaces by imagining, first, a garden or small gardens and intertwining this concept with the interior spaces and requirements of the brief.’ 

INFORMATION

arquitecturia.net

With its stirring backdrop of Catalan modernism, the Sir Victor hotel – named after Víctor Català, the penname of the notable native author Caterina Albert i Paradís – has set a new standard in Barcelona’s lifestyle.

The original building, designed by local architectural firm Capella Garcia in the early 2000s on the illustrious Passeig de Gràcia, became a contemporary landmark in the neighbourhood. Now, following a striking refit under new ownership, it has been reincarnated as the sixth edition of the boutique Sir Hotel collection.

Filtering out the city bustle, the undulating limestone façade provides privacy and cosiness while also directing the Spanish sunlight to the interiors. In the 91 guest rooms and suites, neutral tones provide unfussy spaces furnished with pieces by B&B Italia and Cassina and handcrafted rugs by the local Nani Marquina; a curated showcase of local artists including Antoni Muntadas and Bernat Daviu add colourful hues.

Israeli duo Alon Baranowitz and Irene Kronenberg mastered the open area on the ground floor by taking as their inspiration the Catalan capital’s landscape, from its coast to its mountainous terrain. The bright and airy entrance is reminiscent of the sweeping shoreline; the oversized Carrara marble pool table and the suspended lighting sculpture by Bocci contribute to ambience of understated luxury. Along the lobby lounge, earthier shades take over and lead to Mr Porter, a stylish steakhouse marked by banquettes, marble, copper and leather surfaces overlooked by big, circular skylights.

The sun-filled rooftop bar and lounge are an ideal spot from which to survey the metropolis below; ask the host for a thirst-quenching locally brewed kombucha while sitting in the plunge pool looking across to the otherworldly totems topping Gaudí’s Casa Milà.

ADDRESS

Carrer del Rosselló 265

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A new bakery and pastry school with an avant-garde design has opened in the Eixample district of Barcelona. The space has been designed by architect and designer Virginia del Barco and IDEO Arquitectura to resemble jewellery box, wherein precious – and tasty – creations are displayed.

A bespoke ‘skin’ of clear polycarbonate panels wraps the 500 sq m interior, deliberately exposing wires, concrete pillars and raw walls, in a bid to emphasise the delicate collection of pastry delights inside. A golden-ochre colour brings a sleek sheen to the metal ceiling of the bakery school, display cases in the café and staff aprons, bringing a smooth coherence to the concept, while the pastries themselves are displayed in individual boxes on pillars in the main café area.

The project is the brainchild of Ximena Pastor and Eric Ortuño, two of Spain’s best-known pastry chefs, who will run regular classes on pastry, ice cream and confectionery making, from one-day drop-in classes for all levels, to intensive multi-day courses for industry professionals, all with access to the school’s state-of-the-art machinery and first-rate ingredient supply chain. Regular drop-in tasting workshops are also on offer, including tea and coffee tasting with some of the country’s most respected roasters and brewers.

Expect to find some of Catalan’s more traditional pastries, in addition to some unique and experimental creations by Ortuño, such as his popular ‘potted cacti’ and carrot cakes, alongside excellent coffee.

INFORMATION

latelierbarcelona.com

ideoarquitectura.com

ADDRESS

Carrer de Viladomat
140 bis

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In the heart of Barcelona, in the Poblenou technology district, a lofty timber-framed village theatre had been adapted into a warehouse. Now, the building has been adapted for a new use as a live/work space – and named ‘The Theatre’ in honour of its colourful past. The renovation and redesign has been imagined by Cadaval & Solà-Morales, an architecture firm originally based in New York, now operating from Mexico City and Barcelona.

Captivating and preserving the history of the building’s previous functions, The Theatre retains its large diaphanous loft, where original textures such as wood, metal, brick and stone have been maintained and celebrated in their raw state. The wooden doors of the theatre have been preserved, yet the combination of the wall of framed glazing and the removal of part of the roof from the previous warehouse has completely opened up the space to new light and fresh ventilation.

A new patio extension filled with plants and a cool pond provides a shady oasis of calm – much valued in the busy Barcelona neighbourhood. From houses in the countryside to inner-cty offices, the varied projects of of Cadaval & Solà-Morales each show a consideration for landscaping. 

Two double-height studios lie on each side of the main co-working space, featuring a mezzanine on the upper floor for living and a kitchen on the ground floor. The spaces have been furnished with plenty of personality to feel like home – upon entry to the house, you’ll be greeted by a vintage Porsche 911, now acting as a sculpture it occupies a space that was initially reserved for parking. 

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Cadaval & Solà-Morales website

Barcelona’s Eixample district is a playground for Spanish modernist architecture enthusiasts. Antonio Gaudí was one of the architects who built the area, and recently, an apartment in his first modernist marvel in the district has been refurbished by local interiors firm Mimouca Barcelona.

It was the Nolla mosaic floors, vaulted ceilings and original stained glass of the building on Caspe Street that appealed to the client, one of Istanbul’s biggest art collectors. He was looking for a home for his family in the Spanish city, and was keen to return the interior back to its former splendour.

The Nolla mosaics were the starting point for Mimouca Barcelona, a firm led by Marta Casas, and they endeavoured to keep this flooring throughout the apartment. A subtle shade of mink was applied across walls, carpentry and cabinetry to accentuate its patterned power. The vaulted ceilings received equally meticulous attention, broken pieces tenderly removed and restored across friezes and mouldings.

Mimouca Barcelona’s interior enhances Gaudí’s lavish architectural highlights. In the living room, an original Valencia pink marble chimney is complemented by flanking bespoke oak bookshelves, a Casadesús sofa and vintage 1950s armchairs by Gigi Radice, upholstered in Rubelli velvet. Meanwhile, in the kitchen and dining room, black appliances by Dornbracht contrast the brushed oak dining table by Mimouca Barcelona and Andreu World's Tauro chairs.

The master suite is arguably the apartment’s pièce de résistance. Abundant natural light highlights its sober palette, from the bed’s brass-lined headboard to gilded bedside tables by Praddy.

In the bathroom, a pair of Italian stone sinks set an understated tone, elegantly matched with twin mirrors and black Dornbracht faucets. The toilet and shower spaces are lined with black silestone pavement and grey walls created by local marble artisan Juyol Marbles.

With slight twists throughout, Mimouca Barcelona’s refit seeks to preserve the modernist flair of the apartment, from the doors to the iron and brass fittings. The renovation is considered and gracefully respects Gaudí’s original design, reflecting on the past while shaping it for the future.

INFORMATION 

For more information, visit the Mimouca Barcelona website

In its rise to Europe’s foremost cultural capital, Barcelona’s welcoming of an Edition hotel feels like a long overdue match between two icons. Located in El Born, the city’s historical and creative epicentre, The Barcelona EDITION stands tall over the Santa Caterina Market, after the former office space was radically transformed by Carlos Ferrater Studio into a geometric glass-fronted facade that mirrors the gothic architecture surrounding it. Throughout the property, mastermind Ian Schrager’s creative direction comes to life with acclaimed interior designer Lázaro Rosa-Violán creating a signature Edition space that rewrites its understated luxury with a unique injection of Catalan heritage.

Entering the double-height lobby, contemporary and classic design is mixed, with pieces from the likes of Eric Schmitt and Christian Liaigre, to Dalí and Gaudí. Locals and visitors alike dine here at Bar Veraz, flaunting a menu by Sebastián Mazzola, behind the city’s Pakta and Tickets restaurants. And though you’ll likely want to catch a drink at The Roof, the 10th-floor terrace with unprecedented views across the skyline, the hotel’s Punch Room is where nights are not to be missed. Ascending a marble and wood spiral staircase into a room of leather and velvet furniture, nights run late with a punch menu bringing back the once-lost drinks style in a variety of options.

If you’re staying the night, rooms breathe the telltale trademarks for which Schrager has become so well known, with warm accents coming through in the leather headboards and walnut wood panelling, complemented against whitened oak herringbone parquet floors. Even if just for a nightcap, the latest offering from EDITION is definitely one you’ll want to check in to when next in the Catalan capital.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Av. de Francesc Cambó, 14

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Situated between the Gothic quarter and El Born, Grand Central Hotel is ideally located for all of Barcelona’s main draws, but it is the hotel’s own attractions that make it sing. The rooftop SkyBar is revered by guests and locals alike, who flock here for the signature concoctions created by mixologist Manel Vehí, served poolside amongst sun canopies and longue seating. Riffs on classics — such as the mojito, which includes an unconventional but welcomed dash of egg white — are what make this spot stand out, and are best taken in facing the sea; a vantage point that also gives way to spectacular sunset views.

Skybar at Grand Central Hotel

La Ramblas gets a bad rap and for many justifiable reasons. The presence of H1898 may well redeem all of these. Inside an 1881 building that was once the General Philippines Tobacco Company now stands a hotel and spa which injects some much needed elegance onto the tourist drag. Like the rest of the hotel, the 7th-floor rooftop bar La Isabela takes its cues from the property’s colonial beginnings and is named after a Filipino island. Here, amongst an outdoor pool and calm lounge area, visitors are a world away from the bustle below, with relaxation aided by a fun selection of drinks and tapas made with ingredients from La Boquería.

Via Laietana 30, T 34.93 295 79 00, www.grandhotelcentral.com

La Isabela at H1898

Set away from the city’s central boulevards and holding an enviable position between the beach and the Port Olímpic marina, Hotel Arts has been reigning supreme in this neck of the woods for nearly 25 years. Built to accommodate the crowds visiting the city for the 1992 Olympics, the 500-room glass and steel structure was designed by Bruce Graham and has since become an iconic marker in Barcelona’s dramatic cityscape. Given its lofty heights — 44 storeys to be exact — it’s only fitting that the property is now home to an outdoor infinity pool and lounge, where cocktails, views and music combine to great effect.

La Rambla, 109, T 34.935 529 552, www.hotel1898.com

Terraces and swimming pools at Hotel Arts

In a city where rooftop attractions literally jostle for attention, there’s something rather comforting and unassuming about the Hotel Duquesa de Cardona. That’s not to say this is a modest affair. Perched atop a 16th-century building that was once home to nobility and a refuge for kings, is an impressively expansive (and modern) sun terrace with panoramic views. By day, this is the spot for those in the know, who come here for cooling dips in the pool and a chance to spot the city’s landmarks. By night, teak flooring, flickering candles and well-executed gin tonics set a sophisticated tone that has had loyal fans coming back for years.

Marina 19-21, T 34.932 211 000, www.hotelartsbarcelona.com

Restaurant and cocktail bar at Hotel Duquesa de Cardona

The 10th floor of the Majestic Hotel & Spa Barcelona presents what might be Barcelona’s most luxe spot from which to instigate a game of ‘I Spy’. From Montjuïc Mountain to Casa Batlló to the Olympic Port towers, a host of the city’s landmarks can be taken in – and most importantly, discerned – from the hotel’s La Dolce Vitae rooftop bar. When every sight has been spotted, murals by artist Philip Stanton offer an equally mesmerising backdrop and are a perfect match for a DJ-selected soundtrack, which spans bossa nova, jazz, soul and disco. Dishes by revered chef Nandu Jubany add another layer of flavour.

Passeig Colom 12, T 34.932 689 090, www.hduquesadecardona.com

La Dolce Vitae at Majestic Hotel & Spa

Nearly ten years after opening, the Mandarin Oriental still astounds. From its gently sloping walkway that gradually silences the racket of the Passeig de Gracia upon entering, to the grand Patricia Urquiola-designed Blanc restaurant with its plush armchairs and Fat-Fat side tables from B&B Italia, this hotel is the ultimate word in luxury. It’s suitably crowned by Terrat; a recently revamped rooftop area, where a pool and deck for lounging are both in keeping with the hotel’s focus on wellness and are framed by city views. At night, mindfulness takes a backseat to indulgence, and authentic Peruvian cuisine by Gastón Acurio it best enjoyed with glass of wine in hand and the sunset in the distance.

Passeig de Gràcia 68, T +34 93 488 1717, www.hotelmajestic.es

Terrat at Mandarin Oriental

Born from the Condes Hotel Group’s decision to divide its flagship Passeig de Gracia property into two, Monument is an urban resort in the heart of Barcelona. With the original hotel now reconfigured to fit in one of the two buildings it originally spanned, the remaining building – an 1895 pre-modernist structure by architect Josep Vilaseca – now accommodates 84 guestrooms; three eateries, including the Michelin-starred Lasarte; a florist and a spa. While rooms, medleys of exposed recovered brickwork, oak and plush leather accents, offer plenty to take in, the pièce de résistance is undoubtedly Verbena, a new bar, lounge and chill out area on the 6th floor overlooking the city.

Passeig de Gràcia, T 34.93 151 88 88, www.mandarinoriental.com

Terrace and pool at Monument

Located in Barcelona’s lively Gothic Quarter and in unbeatable proximity to the Palau Güell museum, La Basílica de la Mercè, and the buzzy Las Ramblas, Soho House Barcelona is undoubtedly situated in one of the city’s sweet spots. The position is only matched by the stunning transformation of the heritage-listed 19th-century former block in which it sits; now a 57-room retreat, complete with a rooftop pool and views over Port Vell marina. Slick accents like exposed brick ceiling vaults, local ceramic tiles, vintage bronze fittings and mosaic floors nod to classic Catalan references, an influence which also flavours the menu at the interior courtyard’s open kitchen, led by chef Michele Granziera.

Passeig de Gràcia 75, T 34.935 482 000, www.monumenthotel.com

Soho House Barcelona

Located in Barcelona’s lively Gothic Quarter and in unbeatable proximity to the Palau Güell museum, La Basílica de la Mercè, and the buzzy Las Ramblas, Soho House Barcelona is undoubtedly situated in one of the city’s sweet spots. The position is only matched by the stunning transformation of the heritage-listed 19th-century former block in which it sits; now a 57-room retreat, complete with a rooftop pool and views over Port Vell marina. Slick accents like exposed brick ceiling vaults, local ceramic tiles, vintage bronze fittings and mosaic floors nod to classic Catalan references, an influence which also flavours the menu at the interior courtyard’s open kitchen, led by chef Michele Granziera.

Plaça Del Duc De Medinaceli 4, www.sohohousebarcelona.com

At Sueño at The Serras

Breezy, fun and elegant, The Serras is all of Barcelona’s best attributes materialised and neatly packaged into a Gothic Quarter-located hotel. The 19th-century structure in which the hotel is housed was designed by Spanish architect Francesc Daniel Molina, and now features a restored façade – just one extra draw to this building, which is known locally for being the site of Picasso’s first studio. With views of the Marina Port Vell from a rooftop terrace that includes a slick lounge area and an infinity pool, The Serras serves as an easy vantage point for some of the city’s best vistas. Elsewhere, guestrooms designed by Eva Martinez present a delicate balance of light and colour to complete the chic aesthetic.

Passeig de Colom 9, T 34.931 691 868, www.hoteltheserrasbarcelona.com

The Platja de Garraf is a secluded, crescent-shaped, slice of beach situated 32 kms from Barcelona, or 30 minutes journey by commuter train. A row of pert little art deco-style green and white beach shacks attract the odd architecture tourist, but mostly it’s a laid-back, family destination with pedaloos and gentle lapping waves – until now. Always one to seek out interesting properties, Nick Jones – founder of Soho House Group – has seized upon a small 1950s-built hotel here for his latest members club: Little Beach House.

Built on the sands in the 1950s before Spain’s stricter coastal zoning laws came into effect, this hotel has been rundown and visibly neglected for decades, although it was still appreciated by some for views of the sea, so close you could cast a rod from the rooms’ balconies at high tide. The original split-level layout of the hotel has not been altered, and continues to offer 17 rooms and two outdoor terraces, with an additional rooftop terrace currently being assembled. Soho House’s design team has worked magic with the décor, weaving a luxurious, vintage-tinged ambience with a wide range of natural local materials – rattan, timber, hessian and Moroccan tiles – in colours that sway from sage green to sunny yellow. 

Some guests maybe put off by the absence of a pool, but should be swayed by the hotel’s cosy restaurant, where you can choose your seafood meal – from giant prawns pan-fried in rock salt to pungent pescadito – from a glass showcase next to the open kitchen.

Little Beach House rooms and restaurant will be open to non-members during off-season periods.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Carrer Mirador del Port 1

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With so many well-designed bolt-holes already in place, it hardly seems possible that Barcelona could accommodate yet another boutique hotel. Ahead of openings in Vienna, Prague and Zagreb, the Almanac group’s debut in the Passeig de Gracia neighbourhood, however, is a promising sign. 

Local studio Office of Architecture has joined two 18th- and 20th-century buildings into a 91-room cocoon which, in turn, Jaime Beriestain Studio has layered with spacious white marbled bathrooms, copper accents, low-hanging white drum lamps, and panels of oak and walnut in the bright bedrooms – some of which feature broad bay windows, cleverly converted from the building’s old Juliet balconies. 

Downstairs, in Línea’s high-ceilinged dining room dominated by deep blue hues and towering brass lamps, chef Sergio Ruiz works up an all-day menu based on Catalanian standards of grilled seafood, alongside gluten-free options. Otherwise, head for the expansive rooftop bar and lounge for views of the eternal La Sagrada Familia and Mount Tibidabo. 

ADDRESS

Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 619-621

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Inside a former 1960s office block, three floors above Barcelona’s bustling Plaça de Francesc Macia, the Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan of Studio MK27, is inspecting the perfectly executed details of his newly finished residential design, Francesc Macia 10.

Kogan and his team, headed by directors Diana Radomysler and Suzana Glogowski, have designed the building’s communal areas as well as a vast open-plan apartment that shows off all the hallmarks of his Sao Paulo-based studio’s distinct style – ‘classic but contemporary,’ Kogan says.

Walls lined with Carrara, Negro Marquina and Statuario marble pay homage to Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona pavilion, while the rods of dark American walnut and brass that line the walls throughout the building, and a multicoloured Lina Bo Bardi chair he points out in one of the four bedrooms, nod to Brazil. ‘Also this way of living is very Brazilian,’ points out Radomysler, who heads up interior design at Studio MK27.

‘Many of our houses are very open, in fact they open completely,’ Kogan agrees. ‘You don’t know what is the difference between the outside and the inside – you don’t know exactly the place that it stops and the other begins.’

‘But even here we found the relationship between the inside and the outside very close because of the panoramic windows,’ adds Glogowski. ‘You have the city all the time in your apartment.’

The 600 sq m show apartment is one of eight located inside the listed building, which was designed in the Sixties by Swiss architect Marc-Joseph Saugey and is one of just a few examples of the Bauhaus-style in the Catalan capital.

Possessing a tricky elliptical plan, it rises 11 storeys from ground level – dwarfed by its taller and more rectilinear neighbours. It is wrapped in a distinctive grid of glass, with each window topped by an arch-shaped sunshade – referred to by its developers as ‘eyebrows’ that give the building an anthromorphic appearance.

‘I would never design a building like this, but I like it,’ says Kogan of the shell he was given. ‘I like to use squares and straight lines, but this is 100 per cent curves. It took us a lot of time in the office to work out the logic of the design.’

At street level, the entrances are positioned on either side, tucked under an elegant concrete structure that swoops upwards to the front where a line of double-height glass-fronted stores face onto the roundabout.

Through the apartments’ 55-metre curved walls of floor-to-ceiling windows at the front, residents can take in views towards nearby Turo Park down Avinguda de Pau Casals, while one of the city’s main arteries, Avinguda Diagonal, runs straight through the Plaça.

‘It was very difficult to get Marcio to agree to do this project, but when he saw this,’ says developer José Caireta of Squircle Capital, gesturing at the panoramic vista, ‘he was convinced. Marcio was a filmmaker before he was an architect, and he loved the fact that this was like a movie of Barcelona.’

Together with business partner Daniel Castillo, Caireta brought the building in 2012 when the property market in the city was stagnant – the building had been empty since the early Noughties. Just three months later they invited Kogan to see the building and help them formulate a design for a set of serviced apartments – some of the first in Spain, they say.

Comprising seven full-floor residences of 600 sq m and one 900 sq m two–floor penthouse, the building’s elliptical layout, Kogan says, is like a tree – the walnut-lined elevator core at its centre is the trunk, and the apartments are on its outer branches.

On the first floor, a pool area with an adjoining steam and sauna allows visitors to take in views of the Plaça from sun loungers custom-designed by Bassam Fellows. Lighting throughout the building is by London-based Michael Anastassiades – including a striking bespoke lighting sculpture over the reception desk – and the elegant furniture in the lobby areas comes courtesy of Milanese studio Vincenzo De Cotiis.

‘We’d been visiting all of the furniture fairs to find the right designers and manufacturers,’ says Caireta of his and Castillo’s quest to build the perfect design team for the project. ‘We are control freaks, Daniel and I.’

Preferring to take a hands-on approach, the duo served as main contractors on the project, hiring two in-house architects and project managers who kept a keen on eye on building works and travelled far and wide to source the perfect high-quality materials.

‘There’s always a gap in between a service provider and a client and the idea here is to try and cover this gap,’ says Castillo. ‘When you act as a pure developer and you are not deeply involved with the design and the architect, you cannot cover this gap so the only way is to be active in both. We knew it was really important in order to achieve the high standard that we’re offering.’

Caireta adds: ‘We believe that real luxury is based upon space and the look and feel of the building – real luxury is in the long-term sustainability.’

INFORMATION

For more information visit the Studio MK27 website

By any yardstick, Barcelona is a city blessed with impeccable genes, and like a true urban supermodel, it has few, if any, bad angles. The latest folly in town to take advantage of this fact is the 60-room Yurbban Passage Hotel & Spa.

Two years in the making, the project was a complicated one that involved the incorporation of the extant Passatge de les Manufactures and renovation of a late 19th-century building in the city’s El Born, an ancient quarter that once heaved with merchants, artisans and workshops.

Against architectural firm BCA’s quiet intrusions and preservation of period details like the main staircase and façade rosettes, the interior designer Raquel Sogorb has fashioned an equally thoughtful space for the five-storey hotel. The rooms, especially, sport a handsome patina of paneled timber headboards, dark matt bathroom fittings and wire chairs.

The spa, meanwhile, clad in stone wall, vaulted ceiling and cast-iron pillar – and featuring vegan treatments – is a subterranean counterpoint to the rooftop pool and terrace with views of the cathedral and Santa Maria Del Mar.

And while gourmets will be thrilled to find the laureled chef Xavier Franco in the kitchen of D’Aprop serving up oysters with a chardonnay marinade, and a cold veal tataki with cabernet grapes and onions, it’s worth noting that the hotel’s gift-shop features locally sourced fashion accessories and homeware curated by Nuovum.

ADDRESS

Carrer de Trafalgar 26

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Despite the overwhelming number of accommodation options in Barcelona, Spanish group OD Hotels has still chosen to plant its roots in the Catalan capital, marking its fifth opening – and its first on the mainland – and completing the company’s Mallorcan and Ibizan portfolio. 

Located in the city’s Eixample district, where Gaudí’s masterpieces Casa Milà and Casa Batlló are some of the main draws, the 98-room hotel is a light and spacious sanctuary filled with Mediterranean-inflected bespoke furnishings and textiles courtesy of designers Victor Rahola and Mayte Matutes. 

In the summer months, get social at the signature Sky Bar, swimming pool and sun deck, or opt for plush privacy in the Grand Suite, which comes complete with its own terrace, private swimming pool and enviable views. 

ADDRESS

Carrer d'Aragó, 300

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There are at least two things worth mentioning about Barcelona’s Hotel Alexandra. The first, is its faultless location steps away from the city’s main shopping drag, Passeig de Gràcia, and the second are its new interiors, partly done by local firm Borrell Jover Arquitectura, who renovated the 19th-century pile with flare.

The hotel’s original elements such as the ornate corniced ceilings and colourful hydraulic tiles are decorative  mainstays to the modern interiors dressed with clean-lined low-slung furnishings and contemporary pendant lights in a subdued palette. The 116 rooms are spacious, while some of the suites come with their own terraces and outdoor baths.

A leafy internal courtyard complete with a pool and a bar offers a languid prelude to the meat-heavy menu at Solomillo, which serves up quality cuts of beef from France, Abderdeen, Nebrqaska and Galicia, along with accompaniments such as funghi porcini sauce and creamy parmesan rice.

ADDRESS

Carrer de Mallorca 251

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On a quiet street in Barcelona’s Gràcia district, Casa Vicens has long been an off-radar landmark. The first major project by Catalonian modernist Antonio Gaudí, it attracts curious looks from the sidewalk, with passersby peering though the forged iron gates at a façade of rich red brick and fanciful tile work. This is set to change, as after three years of meticulous restoration by Barcelona based architecture practices Daw Office and Martiñez Lapeña Torres Arquitectes, Casa Vicens will open to the public.

The project has been financed by the Andorra-based MoraBanc. Although the promoters found the UNESCO-classified building in relatively good condition (it was a private residence up until purchase in 2014) the biggest challenge was converting the home into a ‘house-museum’. This has been cleverly attended to by adding a sculptural white staircase through the home’s vertical axis and converting the basement and attic into exhibition spaces and a library-shop.

Casa Vicens was commissioned in 1877 as a summer home for a rich financier. Although now surrounded by residential apartment blocks of a much later period, it once stood on a verdant estate. As is evident in the corbels and pinnacle-shaped windows, Gaudí was heavily influenced by Arabic architecture for the project, but he used colour and decoration as a starting point – as opposed to the sinuous, organic forms that he experimented with in his later projects.

Bringing nature to the interior was his overall objective. The decorative detail in the home’s original living areas (a copycat extension was added in 1925) is dazzling. Olive branches, marigolds and daisies cover wall friezes and ceilings, now resplendent in their original polychromatic hues; while wall murals depicting bucolic fin de siècle scenes have been restored and the famous smoking room cleaned of 130 years of nicotine stains to reveal the depth of its lapis lazuli Mudejar vaulting – crafted, like many of the decorative elements, in papier-mâché.

‘We had to remain entirely flexible throughout the process as each intervention required a different solution,’ says David Garcia, head architect at Daw Office. ‘Our aim was to return the home to its original state 100 per cent. We avoided interpretation at all costs.’

INFORMATION

Casa Vicens reopens 16 November. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Casa Vicens
Carrer de les Carolines
18-24 08012
Barcelona
Spain

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So bullish is the Room Mate Hotels group about Barcelona that it’s opened its fifth property there, this time, themed around a fictitious young Catalan architect who lends his name to the hotel, Room Mate Gerard.

Architect Jaime Beriestain has turned a classic six-storey Eixample building complete with courtyard and balconies in the Ensanche district into a 66-room modernist space. The lobby, especially, feels more like the private residence of roguish young Turk with great taste than a hotel. 

For Beriestain, the Gerard breaks new ground in that this is the first time he has worked with rough materials, sandblasted pine and waxed concrete especially, which might explain the calm masculine vibe of the spaces.

The lighting too is appropriately moody, especially in the bedrooms which are layered with a colour palette of black ink. All that sombreness throughout the hotel is counterpoised by sudden flashes of colour by way of back-lit stuccoed walls, grey terrazzo, Portobello marble, customised deep blue high-backed stools, blue velvet drapes and natural lights from the double-height windows.

Besides the obligatory breakfast room, bijou gym and pool, the facilities are somewhat limited, but then again, this is Barcelona and there are distractions aplenty nearby, not least Plaça Catalunya, the Gothic quarter, the Paseo de Sant Joan, and the modernist masterpiece of Casa Burés. 

ADDRESS

Carrer Ausiàs March 34

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As the saying goes: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. So successful is Nick Jones’ Soho House formula, that reintroducing the same brands of much-loved restaurants, spas and cinemas in each new location, is a no-brainer.

The latest to surface, is a Barcelona outpost of the brand’s Italian restaurant, Cecconi’s. Located on the ground floor of the members’ club, the public restaurant, dressed by the in-house team Soho House Design is, on the surface, immediately recognisable for its signature striped floor. But on closer inspection, it becomes apparent the interiors are peppered with classic Catalan references, including bespoke concrete mosaics inspired by traditional Spanish tiles and terracotta vaulted ceilings that are part of the original heritage-listed 19th-century building.

The food of course is classic Cecconi’s, with an array of fail-safe northern Italian offerings from the perfectly crisp veal Milanese to prosciutto San Daniele served with rocket and creamy burrata.

We suggest heading to the central courtyard where, under a retractable roof, house-made pizzas are churned out quick as a flash from the tiled pizza oven.

ADDRESS

Passeig de Colom, 20

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There are so many things to applaud about the newly opened The One Barcelona. For starters, its location on the city’s Ciutat Comtal, within striking distance of the historic Passeig de Gracia and La Pedrera, is peerless. Second, are the handsome interiors by designer Jaime Beriestain, who has renovated a chamfered pile with a chic palette of copper, stone and glass.

Each of the 89 rooms is a white canvas furnished with both cool pastel and warm hues, and copper lines that form pleasing panelled grids, alongside an original piece by the artist Fernando Prats. Indeed, no one could ever accuse the hotel of cutting corners, not when there’s Jordanian and Serpeggiante marble, oak floors in various hues, and 18-carat gold taps on show. Beriestain pulls double duty with his own customised furniture, though there are also pieces by Antonio Citterior and Ray and Charles Eames to be spotted.

Downstairs in the Somni Restaurant & Cocteleria, chef Miguel Muñoz mines the Mediterranean to turn out creamed sweet potato paired with caramelised chestnuts, and sticky rice studded with artichokes and orange chanterelle mushrooms. The good life is best celebrated on the rooftop for its ocean views, or a quick session in the solarium or the plunge pool.

ADDRESS

Provença 277

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It almost feels as if a hotel is opening in Barcelona every other day. The latest to surface over the radar is the latest outpost of Soho House in the city’s lively Gothic Quarter. And that is probably the secret to the group’s stamina – an unerring sense of a city’s sweet spot, here manifested by an unbeatable proximity to the Palau Güell museum, La Basílica de la Mercè, the Colombus monument, buzzy Las Ramblas and the Mediterranean sea, alongside a casual haul of boutiques, tapas bars and vintage stores.

Nick Jones and his in-house team have transformed a heritage-listed 19th-century block of apartments into a slick 57-room retreat with a sleek roof top pool and views over the Port Vell marina. If you detect a soft Moorish hint in the décor, it’s because the mood board is littered with classic Catalan references by way of exposed brick ceiling vaults, local ceramic tiles, vintage bronze fittings and mosaic floors and bar tops.

The interior courtyard is set off by an open kitchen from which chef Michele Granziera sends out mango-scented sea bass ceviche, and calamari paired with spicy aioli.

ADDRESS

Plaça del Duc de Medinaceli

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In the late 1980s, Barcelona’s City Hall decided to tear down defunct industrial buildings in the large working class district of Sants and create public parks. This has resulted in some of city’s more unusual landscapes, such as the Parc d’l Espanya Industrial with its postmodernist lighthouses and lake, and the Parc de l’Excorxador – once the site of an abattoir, now filled with palm trees and a surreal sculpture by Joan Miró. Now, a new High Line-type project completes the set.

Named the Jardins de la Rambla de Sants, the scheme effectively encloses a corridor of six railway lines, deemed too costly to move underground, and provides a plant-filled urban space in a congested area next to the city’s main train station. The 800m long promenade takes shape with prefabricated concrete boxes in the form of Warren beams, which recall classic railway bridges. The triangles of the boxes are filled with glass, which cuts down on noise, while still affording views of the passing trains from ground level.

Large light boxes illuminate the promenade and rooftop gardens in the evening

The top level, or roof, is covered with a variety of plant life, arranged into stylised gardens of Mediterranean bushes and herbs, and miniature forests of rosewood and flowering Koelreuteria trees. With time, creepers will take over the triangular supports of the ‘beams’, filling the air with the scent of jasmine, while futuristic pergolas and sleek wooden benches provide places to gather. 

Sergi Godia and Ana Molino are the architects behind Jardins de la Rambla de Sants. Godia has a strong portfolio of striking civic buildings and public spaces and says the principal challenge with this one was creating a structure 'of large dimensions that was light, transparent and compatible with its surroundings'.

At a cost of 120 million euros the solution didn’t come particularly cheap, and further criticism has been directed at the close proximity of the rooftop promenade to the balconies of surrounding apartment buildings. However, like some of Barcelona’s other daring public spaces, Jardins de la Rambla de Sants will probably just take a bit of getting used to. If there is one thing Barcelona excels at, it’s having the confidence to repurpose its public domains.

As if building a house isn’t already a design and logistical challenge, imagine having to build a second one on the same sloping site, but in a way that is unobtrusive whilst mainlining its own space and privacy. Barcelona-based architects PMMT solved the puzzle with commendable aplomb for this three-storey family home in St Gervasio, a residential neighborhood in Barcelona at the foot of Tibidabo Mountain.

Built in the gardens that surround an existing 19th-century home belonging to the client’s parents, the biggest challenge was to integrate the new building into the landscape, and without blocking any views of the parents’ house. The fairly steep slope required the architects to split the volume of the house, so that the whole is terraced on separate levels below street level.

The resulting orientation of the TR House has meant that most of the interiors face inwards towards an open core through which light pours in, to create a calmness of space that is almost Japanese in its austerity.

Take an interactive tour of TR House

Maximià Torruella, PMMT’s general director, says ‘all of the rooms and spaces in the house are organized around a central courtyard, and all feature differing connections with their surroundings based on their specific needs.’

The façade is a mix of glass and vertical timber slats, but the eye is always drawn to the pergola on the upper floor terrace where a cloak of green vitrified ceramic tiles, assembled on a stainless steel wired net, practically cascades down the side of the building. 
     
The use of tiles in this way – part of a new patented building material and technique dubbed Fabrik and manufactured by the New Jersey-based Shildan Group, that debuted at this year’s AIA Convention – meant the architects were able to create open internal spaces that are protected from the sun and neighbours, while blending in with the surrounding greenery. 
     
‘Glazed ceramic has always been a traditional material in Catalan architecture because it can endure humidity and strong sun without noticeable change to its properties,’ says Torruella. ‘Moreover, Fabrik has the benefit of being a traditional material fused with a new technology. We also appreciated the possibility of using the product both vertically and horizontally, so that we could build the home's façades and its roof using a single solution.’

INFORMATION

For more information visit the architect’s website

Located at the base of Barcelona’s Hotel Alexandra, Solomillo – according to its devotees – is currently serving up the finest sirloin in the city. 

Helmed by chef Enrique Valentí, the steakhouse comprises a modern open plan brasserie on the mezzanine level, while the ground floor deli and bar entices diners in from the street with a delicious selection of cold cuts and cheeses.

Local studio Borell Jover has created an interior that is an ode to the Spanish design scene; from the black marble countertops sourced from quarries in Andalusia to the placemats by Navarra-based brand Delica, all components have been obtained through Reunión empresas de diseño (RED) an association that aims to protect and promote the values of the country’s best design output. ‘We wanted to create an interior that was timeless, but with a modern feel,’ explain the architects Maria Borrell and Jorge Jover, who have skilflully mixed classics such as Lluis Porqueras’ 1979 ‘Funiculí’ lamps for Marset with new pieces like Andreu World’s beech wood ‘Carola’ chairs.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Calle Mallorca, 251

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In a city accustomed to grand urban overhauls, the Les Glòries development on Barcelona’s eastern flank counts as one of the most significant – and given the city’s natural sea and mountain boundaries, possibly its last.

Les Glòries refers to an intersection of the city’s main arteries, until recently a hellish knuckle of traffic-clogged ring roads. The first stage of redevelopment has put all this underground – freeing up the ground level for a gigantic public space, with parks, gardens and sports facilities. Around this future super square, Jean Nouvel’s landmark Torre Agbar, the brutalist Barcelona Design Museum and the soaring metal canopies protecting the second-hand traders of Els Encants Vells flea market set the tone for the 21st century panorama to come. But mostly the site is a cacophony of cranes, bulldozers and temporary walkways weaving around mounds of pink dirt.

With the intention of instilling some sense of order, Barcelona City Hall ordered an information point for the site – a place where locals could come and be informed about the works, and visitors could pick up information geared to tourists. The young, Barcelona-based architecture studio Peris + Toral won the commission in a closed competition.

The structure is designed to be temporary – lasting the estimated four more years it will take to complete the square and then possibly moved to another part of the city. Marta Peris and José Manuel Toral took inspiration from the transformational character of the site, using low cost materials to deliver within a budget of just under €170,000 . 

The linear structure takes shape (and is supported) with scaffolding, which is interwoven in peaks and troughs with wire mesh over a translucent polycarbonate skin. The internal programme consists of two prefab wooden modules, serving as the information desks and a bike rental point.

The architects admit that much research was needed in order to come up with a programme that could be reduced or expanded if and when it is repurposed. They also say their desire was to provide a spot of shade and tranquillity amid the chaos – a task that has proved difficult as the earthmovers trundle on. 

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Peris + Toral website

We’ve said it before, but the rate at which the Room Mate group is expanding should give even its most aggressive competitor cause to pause. Its newest property is one more example of its talent for scouting prime locations in agreeable neighbourhoods. Steps from Barcelona’s golden retail strip of Passeig de Gracia, the 81-room Anna is contained within an early 20th-century Modernist pile that was, till a few years ago, the University of Chicago campus and venue for the 20th anniversary of Casa Décor. 

Interior designer Lorenzo Castillo has parlayed previous outings with Room Mate on their New York and Florence hotels, into an assured, grown-up bolt-hole where breakfast is served till noon and the circular rooftop pool features views of the Agbar Tower and Gaudi’s Casa Batlió.
    
In keeping with Barcelona’s proximity to the sea, turquoise and aquamarine hues dominate, alongside bespoke timber furniture, brass finishes, and the occasional maritime tchotchke by way of red Trapani coral and shells. Castillo says his design scheme is a deliberate move away from the contemporary penchant for neo-industrial Nordic chic in favour of a return to Barcelona’s Catalonian Mediterranean roots. 

And just in case one needed more proof of Room Mate’s ambitions and bullish optimism for Barcelona, the group has plans to open two more properties in the city by next year. 

ADDRESS

Carrer Aragó 271

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Barcelona’s newest bed and breakfast, Casa Mathilda, is the latest in a wave of understated luxury hotel openings in Catalonia’s capital. Channeling enough effortless style and reassuring homeliness to rival any Airbnb listing, Casa Mathilda has been designed by Barbara Aurell of local interior design studio Espacio en Blanco to capture the spirit of the post-modern apartments in Barcelona’s Eixample district.

Located in an  early twentieth century building, original features such as brass doorknobs, tall stained glass doors and parquet oak floors have all been painstakingly restored to their former glory. New updates include original ceiling moldings refashioned into mirror frames and shelves, and pastel cement tiles, soft green walls and vintage furniture that blend in with the post-modern mood.

'If I had to define this hotel would as a space created by people for people,’ says interior designer Barbara Aurell. ‘I wanted to escape creating a cold and impersonal accommodation for our guests.'

To foster this relaxed, domestic atmosphere, the common areas are laid out so that guests can move freely between them from the lobby, kitchen and lounge to the leafy patio. Guests staying in one of Casa Mathilda’s 14 unique guest rooms can also look forward to breakfasts of homemade cakes, natural juices, seasonal fruits and different types of breads prepared by Assumpta Baldó, the hotel’s owner.

ADDRESS

Roger de Llúria 125-127

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If the curious looks of passersby are anything to go by, The Spa Kitchen on a leafy street in Barcelona’s Eixample district, is certainly a departure from the usual run-of-the-mill beauty salons. Not surprising, considering the owners are Ronit Stern and Rafael Campos, the entrepreneurial duo behind the artisanal bakeries Crustō, which they have since sold, and the buzzing Toto Restaurant and Wine Bar, where they tapped local design star Lázaro Rosa-Violán for the interiors.

Clearly aesthetically inclined, for the spa, the duo charged Barbara Aurell of interior studio Espacio En Blanco, who took a quirky, relaxed approach to the design, filling the space with an eclectic mix of vintage furnishings, enhanced by standout elements such as the central coconut fibre lamps and colourful wallpaper from House of Hackney in London.

Indulge in a pedicure with a jar of homemade lemonade while ensconced in wicker chairs softened by faux fur throws before heading to one of the treatment rooms for a deep tissue massage or an anti-ageing facial. 

While we recommend a visit to the actual shop for the full experience, the salon does offer a ‘take away’ service for clients who prefer the comfort of their own home.

ADDRESS

Carrer d'Enric Granados, 93

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Of Barcelona’s many-splendoured culinary delights, good vegetarian menus have been conspicuously absent. Until, that is, the arrival of Green Spot just below the Born and Gothic quarters where En Compania de Lobos, one of the city’s best-known restaurant groups, has tapped the São Paulo-based Isay Weinfeld for the interiors. 

A long oak-lined corridor at the entrance draws the eye inwards past light-washed rooms, arches, a copper-topped bar, and a quietly lush interior garden. Earthy tones dominate as terracotta, raw linen and oak nicely complement vintage table lamps and Zeitraum furniture. 

From behind the glass-walled kitchen, Marcelino Jimenez masterminds a locally-sourced and seasonal vegetarian menu that is anchored with Mediterranean ingredients, but which freestyles through a thoroughly enjoyable mash-up of global cuisine – dolmades stuffed with red quinoa, pakoras, fennel roasted with orange and chilli, egg and kale casseroles, and even Chinese-styled lettuce leaves wrapped around tofu and herbs. 

ADDRESS

Carrer de la Reina Cristina, 12
Barcelona

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Two is better than one, seems to be the mantra behind Condes Hotel Group’s decision to split its flagship property on Barcelona’s Passeig de Gracia to create Monument, a new urban resort that smartly also ups the brand’s luxe factor.

While the original hotel has now been re-jigged to fit in one of the two buildings it occupied, the other building - a grand pre-modernist structure built by architect Josep Vilaseca in 1895 - has been transformed into a boutique haven that comprises 84 spacious rooms; three dining venues including Michelin star restaurant Lasarte; a flower shop and a mini spa.

Originally lead by celebrated local architect Oscar Tusquets, the project was then completed by duo Tote Moreno and Carles Bassó along with interior designer Mercè Borrell, who meticulously restored the neo-gothic inspired building - the former residence of industrialist Enric Batllo - to showcase the best of its original details, including the building’s original grand marble staircase. In the rooms, exposed recovered brickwork is tempered with lashings of oak that cloaks the remaining walls, ceiling and floor, while butter-soft leather headboards add a touch of plushness.

Located on the city’s main shopping drag, the property’s faultless location further underlines the Condes Group’s mission to create a ‘landmark hotel’ and expand its luxury offerings.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Passeig de Gracia 75

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At the rate the Room Mate hotel group is turning out new properties, it’s only a matter of time before it completely corners the market in bright, cheery, well-priced lodgings located in glossy outposts like Mexico City, Florence, Istanbul and Miami Beach. For now, the focus seems to be Spain with Room Mate Carla just opening in Barcelona, which brings the city’s haul to three properties and a fourth scheduled for later this summer. 

Tomas Alia headlines the interior design of the 81-room Carla with an almost futuristic bent. The public spaces are splashed in swathes of deep blue and lime green. In the lobby, customized geometric-shaped armchairs set off screens of enameled ceramic and furnishings that were apparently inspired by Gaudi’s brand of kooky modernism. 

Meanwhile, the white-on-white bedrooms are dressed in a kind of stark minimalism that alternates between pop-art overhangs and graphic motifs, and high-ceilinged mouldings – courtesy of the building’s 19th-century provenance – that are more reminiscent of an art gallery.

The Carla’s location – near Paseo de Gracia – is a particular plus, as well as a reflection of the group’s penchance for interesting locations. The retail and culinary delights of Las Ramblas, the colour and tastes of La Boqueria market, and Barri Gotic cathedral are all within easy reach. 

ADDRESS

Carrer de Mallorca, 288

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What began as a small wine- and tapas-bar in 1996, albeit one that paid homage to restaurateur Sasa Mahr-Batuz’s years in Spain and Portugal, has grown into a tasty little American East Coast culinary empire with outposts in Georgia, Massachusetts, Washington D.C. area, and Connecticut.

The newest addition to the Barteca Restaurant Group just landed in Atlanta in a former ironworks foundry. Taking his design cues from a Bohemian neighbourhood that includes an artists’ community and farmer’s market, Mahr-Batuz has dreamed up an interior in which mid-century modern meets industrial.

Framed by large steel l-beams, a huge cantilevered flat roof, steel sash windows rescued from a factory in Queens, New York, the room is furnished with early 20th-century northern European furniture, a customized steel wine wall, wall panels made from old Worcestershire sauce barrels, and artwork and photography by Mahr-Batuz and his father.

In the kitchen, executive chef Benjamin Meyer cooks up a storm, ever with an eye to pairing options with the restaurant’s perky wine and spirits list. House specials include a chicken pimientos, and anything cooked a la plancha.

Mahr-Batuz and co-founder Andy Pforzheimer are so bullish about the Barcelona formula they're already all prepped to open two outlets in Nashville in the coming year. 

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

1085 Howell Mill Road NW

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It’s been 30 years since the recreation of Mies van der Rohe's feted Barcelona Pavilion. To commemorate its anniversary, Fundació Mies van der Rohe, the nonprofit organisation that manages the property, has launched an exciting program of events.

Designed in 1929 for the Barcelona International Exhibition, the beautifully refined glass, steel and marble structure was quickly disassembled in 1930. Half a century passed with only photographs and drawings for reference; but though long gone, the structure was not forgotten, fondly remembered by the world as a shining example of van der Rohe’s architectural genius and 20th-century modernism. Work began in 1983 to reconstruct the iconic building on its original site, with the Pavilion finally reaching completion in 1986.

The opening of the anniversary celebrations, attended by the Mayoress of Barcelona and members of the team responsible for the Pavilion’s reconstruction, will commence with the unveiling of an artistic reinterpretation of the columns that were situated next to the 1929 original, designed by Catalan modernist Josep Puig i Cadafalch. ‘Fear of Columns’, an open competition, called for proposals to envision a temporary reinterpretation of the original context, to be located adjacent to the new Pavilion.

From 121 entries, the panel of judges unanimously opted for Spanish architect Luis Martínez Santa-María’s submission as the winner, with a project titled ‘I don’t want to change the world. I only want to express it’ – named after a quote from van der Rohe himself.

The installation, consisting of eight tall columns, will be constructed from a number of sheet steel drums retrieved from chemical waste cemeteries and welded together. The project, described by Santa-María as ‘objets d’art’, was cited by the judging panel as being contemporary and compelling due to its contrast to the pavilion's horizontal form.

The program of events will continue with the Pavilion remaining open to the public over five days, providing neighbours, citizens and travelers with the opportunity to visit. On 16 June, Tristán Perich will unveil his three-day long installation Microtonal Wall, consisting of 1,500 loudspeakers on a 7.5m aluminium panel, which will fill the Pavilion's interior with a range of sounds.

In the month of October, the Pavilion will host a three-day symposium covering a wide range of topics related to van der Rohe, modern architecture and its close relationship to the Bauhaus school and the Weimar Republic.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Fundació Mies van der Rohe’s website

ADDRESS

Av. de Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia 7
08038 Barcelona

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