Barcelona architecture, Catalan building photos, Catalunya property news, Spanish designs developments pictures

Barcelona Architecture : Buildings

Key Property + Architectural Developments in Catalonia, Spain, Europe

post updated 19 July 2024

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Barcelona Architecture

photo © Adrian Welch

Arquitectura España

Barcelona is capital of Catalonia (Catalunya), an autonomous region of Spain. It is Spain’s major Mediterranean port and famous for Gaudi, Dali, Miro and Picasso. The city is strong commercially compared to the rest of Spain in an similar way to say Milan and the rest of Italy. The Olympics were staged in Barcelona in 1992 and provided a legacy of good contemporary architecture with many buildings by famous architects.

Catalonia Architecture Guide

The most famous Barcelona building is surely Sagrada Familia by Spanish architect Gaudi. Still under construction, we feature photos of this iconic piece of architecture. The centre of the city – Barri Gothic – is formed from a Roman village, tight-knit alleys, squares and charming cheek-by-jowl buildings. Located outwith is a civilised grid of avenues, Eixample, cut through by the Diagonal. This order is terminated by the hills that ring Barcelona, and of course the Mediterranean Sea.

Barcelona Architecture : key buildings (this page)

Barcelona Buildings : A-B

Barcelona Architecture Designs : C-E

Barcelona Building Developments : F-L

Barcelona Building Designs : M-Z

Key Barcelona Buildings

The buildings below are unmissable on any visit.

Barcelona Architecture Walking Tours
We do walking and cycling tours of the city – contact isabelle@e-architect.com to ask for details.

Catalan Architecture, chronological:

Barcelona Cathedral Building, Barri Gotic
–

image © AW
Historic architecture located in the city centre.

Sagrada Familia
Design: Antoni Gaudi Architect

photos © Adrian Welch
A stunning piece of Spanish architecture. Gaudi’s designs resonate with the work of Surrealist artist Salvador Dali. This inventive and iconic Barcelona building uses stone caricatures to weave the story of Christianity.

Casa Batlo, Eixample
Antoni Gaudi, Architect

photo © Isabelle Lomholt
Casa Batllo is the smaller and earlier of the Gaudi buildings on Passeig de Gracia. The building is delightfully organic with a writhing sculptural facade that brings the street to life.

Casa Mila Barcelona – La Pedrera
Antoni Gaudi, Architect

picture © Adrian Welch
Casa Mila – ‘The Quarry’: – is a beautiful sculptural building that expresses pure tectonic delight and unlike Sagrada Familia (also by Antoni Gaudi) its architecture is simpler and less specific, therefore in many ways more sophisticated. Gaudi has taken stone and moulded it like lava, achieving pure drama.

Park Guell Barcelona, north of the city
Antoni Gaudi, Architect

image © AWClassic Gaudi Architecture
A great place to relax, enjoy the coutryside and gain great views out over Barcelona. The best Gaudi architecture is at the lower, south end of Park Guell, primarily close to the southern entry. A fantastic pink house, the home of Antoni Gaudi for around 20 years is in the middle of the lower section.

Barcelona Pavilion building, Hill of Montjuic
Design: Mies van der Rohe Architect

picture © Adrian WelchWorld-famous Modern Architecture
For many architects this is their favourite building – it is elegant, beautifully proportioned and made with quality materials. The detailing is exquisite and the whole project breathes calmness.

Montjuic Communications Tower, Hill of Montjuic
Design: Santiago Calatrava, Architect

photo © AW
This iconic Barcelona building 136m high. This hihgly stylised Calatrava building feels like an enlarged piece of sculpture carved from pure white marble, or as semi dough-ring speared by a bloated toothpick.

Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art
Design: Richard Meier & Partners, Architects

photograph © Adrian Welch
A typical Richard Meier building with rectilinear elements expressed in white metal panels and key parts in white render as organic forms in plan. The US architect could have engaged more with the context of Barcelona architecture – the modern building is too similar to others by this architectural office.

Barcelona Forum Building, Diagonal Mar
Design: Herzog & de Meuron Architects

image © Adrian Welch
A rather severe building with rough dark blue lavaesque treatment to facades spiced up with cut-outs and jerky glazed strips. These strips are striated with mirrors trying to reduce the weight of the ‘floating blue cheesecake’. Below the macho cantilevers lies what on my visit appeared to be a no-man’s land of patterns and blank facades.

Santa Caterina Market, Barri Gotic
Design: Enric Miralles / Benedetta Tagliabue EMBT

picture © Isabelle Lomholt
This redevelopment is, like many Barcelona buildings featured, an organic piece of architecture. The project is dominated by its playful, colourful roof which undulates over the fixed market stalls below.

Agbar Tower, Barcelona skyscraper
Design: Jean Nouvel Architects

photo © AW
This skyscraper building is 142m high, the third highest in Barcelona in 2005. Designed by French architects – a controversy emerged surrounding how similar the design was to Foster + Partner’s Swiss Re tower in London.

Nou Camp Stadium Building
Foster + Partners, Architects

image : Foster + Partners
Barcelona FC cancelled this €250m Camp Nou arena building design by British architect Norman Foster, which the UK architects office had won from competition in 2007.

Porta Fira Hotel
Toyo Ito & Associates / b720

photo from FCC
Hotel Porta Fira was designed by the Japanese architecture firm Toyo Ito & Associates and the Spanish firm b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos. The 26-floor hotel tower is 113 m high and located in one of Barcelona’s busiest areas. The lead architect won the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 2013.

Torre Diagonal Zero Zero
EMBA

photo : EMBA
A contextual tower that has a double reading, from near and afar, in response to the two scales that such tall buildings must address. Taking the urban directions that form the perimeter of the plot as generators of its form, the building is a trapezoidal prism, sharp and stylized, a clean and serene form, whitish and light.

Barcelona Architects

Barcelona Pavilion Photos

photo © AW

Antoni Gaudi buildings

Recent Catalan architectural designs on e-architect:

9 March 2024
72 Social Housing Units at the Marina del Prat Vermell
Architects/designers: MIAS Architects, together with Coll-Leclerc Architects

photo © Adrià Goula
72 Social Housing Units at the Marina del Prat Vermell

7 March 2024
El Trull CV, Cuadrat Valley estate, Garrigues (comarca), Catalunya, northeast Spain
Architecture: Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

photo : Adrià Goula
El Trull CV, Cuadrat Valley estate

15 July 2023
Casa CB, Sabadell
Architects: Alventosa Morell Arquitectes

photo : Adrià Goula
Casa CB, Sabadell, Catalunya

6 June 2023
Office Tower in Plaza Europa 34, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat
Architecture: GCA Architects

photo : Rafael Vargas
Torre Plaza Europa 34

7 Mar 2023
Forest Lab for Observational Research and Analysis, Collserola Natural Park
Architecture: IAAC and MAEBB

photo : Adria Goula
FLORA, Collserola Natural Park

Architecture in Barcelona

Key Catalan buildings, alphabetical:

La Fundació Joan Miró, Parc de Montjuïc
Design: Josep Lluís Sert, Architect

photo © AW
Joan Miro Foundation Buildings

Media-ICT – World Building of the Year 2011
Design: Cloud 9

photograph from architect
Media-ICT Barcelona

Barcelona Public Spaces – Plazas + Parques in the city

More Barcelona Architecture welcome

Location: Barcelona, Catalunya, Northeast Spain, southwestern Europe

Catalan Architecture

Barcelona Architecture News

Col.legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya: www.coac.net
Catalonian Architects’ Website with links to Barcelona Architecture + Architects

Architecture in Barcelona
Barcelona is a favourite destination among architecture buffs and interested travellers looking to marvel at the sheer genius of Gaudí’s structures, the intricate designs of the Catalan Modernist movement and, of course, the historic masterpieces of Ancient Rome.

Comments / photos for the Barcelona Architecture page welcome