Architecture and Barcelona are two words that, together, are better understood. Not only because this year the Catalan capital holds the title of World Capital of Architecture, but, above all, for everything that can be discovered by walking through its streets. Because Barcelona's architecture goes far beyond the great heritage monuments, the modernist facades of the Eixample or Gaudí's works. It is also in the everyday buildings that shape the neighborhoods, in the spaces we inhabit without paying attention to them, and in the contemporary constructions that continue to transform the urban landscape.
It is precisely this transversal view of architecture that the 48 H Open House Barcelona festival has been advocating for more than fifteen years. Every autumn, for one weekend, the festival invites to open doors that usually remain closed and to discover buildings that often go unnoticed. Schools, hospitals, sports centers, homes and workshops share the program with palaces, historic buildings and other heritage spaces. An opportunity to go beyond the facades, delve into little-known spaces and understand how architecture conditions the way we live and experience the city. This weekend, the festival returns with a new edition that will open the doors of 217 buildings spread across six municipalities. Barcelona will concentrate 155 visitable spaces, while Badalona, l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Vilassar de Dalt and Sitges will complete the program, under the motto Life without architecture.
Given such a wide offer, however, how can we choose where to start? Elisenda Bonet, director of the festival, recommends choosing a building that sparks curiosity and taking advantage of the visit to explore the spaces around it. Discovering Barcelona by neighborhoods, without wanting to see everything, allows room for improvisation and finding architecture where we least expect it. To facilitate planning, the festival also provides visitors with a map with information on public attendance in real time.
From The New Barcelona Post, we propose a selection of essentials to navigate among the multiple possibilities of the weekend and discover Barcelona from very different perspectives. We will cross the doors of buildings that usually remain closed to the public, we will go up to the heights to contemplate the city from another point of view, we will delve into hotels that are also architectural icons and we will explore homes that propose new ways of living. The tour will finally take us to spaces that preserve the memory of ancient Barcelona, to trace the footsteps of the past and discover the stories that still beat within its walls.
Behind closed doors
One of the great attractions of the 48 H Open House Barcelona is the possibility of crossing doors that usually remain closed and discovering another side of the city. From private clubs to old office buildings or artisan workshops, the festival allows entry into spaces that tell often unknown stories and that, were it not for the festival, would be difficult to visit.
Among these visits, the Cercle del Liceu (Sunday, from 10 am to 1 pm) stands out, a private club that preserves the elegance of Catalan modernism in the stained glass windows by Oleguer Junyent and the decorative elements by Josep Pascó. In the same vein, Vitralls Bonet (Saturday, at 10, 11 and 12 am) opens the doors of its workshop to discover the art of creating and restoring stained glass, an artisanal craft that remains alive and has left its mark on works such as the Sagrada Família.
Other buildings invite us to trace the different lives that the same architecture can have. The Estel building (Saturday, from 10 am to 7 pm), former headquarters of Telefónica, has undergone a complete transformation that has turned it into a contemporary, open and bright space, which today houses the headquarters of AstraZeneca. On Via Laietana, the CCOO building (Saturday and Sunday, from 10 am to 7 pm) allows us to discover the traces of its history, from its origins as the headquarters of the Caixa Mútua Popular to its recent restoration, which has recovered the original elements of the facade after years covered by a mesh due to deterioration.
The route extends to Sant Joan Despí, where the Torre de la Creu (Saturday and Sunday, from 10 am to 2 pm and from 4 pm to 8 pm) introduces us to the creative universe of Josep Maria Jujol. Also known as the Torre dels Ous (Egg Tower), it stands out for its cylindrical volumes of different heights and parabolic domes that give it a unique silhouette. One of those works that, once you cross the door, allow you to understand to what extent architecture can surprise beyond the facade.
The towers that draw the horizon
From the heights, Barcelona reveals another of its faces. The towers that rise at different points of the city not only define its horizon, but also offer a privileged perspective of the urban landscape. At the entrance of Reina Maria Cristina Avenue, the Torres Venecianes (Venetian Towers) (Sunday, from 10 am to 6 pm) welcome visitors with their silhouettes inspired by the bell tower of St. Mark's in Venice, built for the 1929 International Exposition. Very different is the perspective offered by the Torre de Collserola (Collserola Tower) (Sunday, visits at 10 am and 11:45 am), from where the city stretches at the visitor's feet and merges with the surrounding landscape.
The route continues tracing two landmarks of contemporary architecture. To the north of Barcelona, the Torre Júlia (Julia Tower) (Sunday, from 10 am to 2 pm) stands out in the landscape with its prismatic volume and 17 floors of housing with services for the elderly. Next to the sea, Torre Mapfre (Mapfre Tower) (Saturday, from 10 am to 7 pm) rises 154 meters above the Olympic Village. With 43 floors, it became one of the emblematic images of the 1992 Olympic transformation and still today marks the profile of the coastline. Four towers, four ways to observe Barcelona and to read, from the heights, the different stages of its transformation.
Barcelona, through the eyes of a tourist
Observing Barcelona with tourist eyes is an exercise we rarely do when we live in the city. But its hotels also offer a different way to discover it, either through great contemporary icons or buildings that hide stories linked to the past. On the seafront, Hotel Arts (Saturday, from 10 am to 3 pm) stands as one of the symbols of the transformation of the coastline for the 1992 Olympic Games. With 154 meters high, its white steel exoskeleton draws an unmistakable silhouette on the maritime facade. On the other side of the city, Hesperia Barri Gòtic (Saturday, from 10 am to 7 pm) proposes a journey through time through a historic estate that preserves the traces of different eras.
In L'Hospitalet, hotel architecture adopts more extreme forms. The Toyo Ito hotel (Saturday, from 10 am to 1 pm) attracts attention for its facade of red aluminum tubes, which surrounds the building with an organic and changing geometry. Not far away, the Hyatt Regency Barcelona Tower (Sunday, from 10 am to 6 pm) dominates the landscape with its glass tower and the dome that crowns the building. The route can end at Torre Melina (Saturday, from 10 am to 7 pm), where contemporary architecture coexists with historic gardens of romantic inspiration. Five spaces that invite you to rediscover the surroundings with a new perspective, as if Barcelona were, for a weekend, a city yet to be explored.
Homes with their own stories
But, beyond hotels and heritage buildings, homes also tell the story of the city from a more everyday perspective. Houses speak of the ways of life of each era, of the relationship with the environment and of the needs of those who inhabit them. This selection combines constructions that preserve the memory of old Barcelona with contemporary projects that experiment with new ways of understanding domestic space. This look at the past begins by the sea, at the Garraf Beach Houses (Sunday, at 11 am, 12 pm and 1 pm; with prior registration), a unique set of small constructions built from the 1920s by railway workers
Back in Barcelona, the route delves into the city's architectural heritage. The lobbies of Casa Sayrach and Casa Montserrat (Sunday, 10 am to 7 pm) allow visitors to discover the imprint of modernism in the Eixample. In Nou Barris, on the other hand, Can Valent (Sunday, 10 am to 2 pm) transports us to a more rural past: this old farmhouse in the neighborhood has been rehabilitated to recover its heritage value. Another small gem in this year's selection is the Caseta de Nines del Putxet (Saturday, 4 pm to 7 pm), built in the 1950s for the children of a Barcelona family to play in. With its facades decorated with trencadís, this miniature house has been recently restored to preserve its original details.
In contrast to these constructions that look to the past, other projects propose new ways of conceiving housing. WikiHousing (Sunday, 10 am to 2 pm) explores an open-source construction model, with pieces manufactured using digital tools, which seeks to open new possibilities in the way of designing and building. At Staircore (Saturday, 4 pm to 7 pm), the renovation has managed to turn the staircase into the backbone of the domestic space, transforming a functional element into the protagonist of the house.
The millennial city
Barcelona can also be discovered by tracing the footsteps of the different eras that have left their mark on its landscape. The Llotja de Mar (Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm) can be the first stop on a journey through this past, in this case, through its commercial past, in a building that combines medieval Gothic architecture with neoclassical elements.
The route continues at the Palau del Marquès d’Alfarràs (Saturday and Sunday, 10 am to 7 pm), in the Laberint d’Horta park, an old defensive tower transformed over the centuries into a stately estate, with Neo-Arab elements, and gardens that served as the setting for the film Perfume. In l'Hospitalet, the Casa Gralla (Saturday, 10 am to 2 pm) hides a Renaissance courtyard recovered from the old Barcelona palace, demolished in 1856. Finally, the Reial Monestir de Santa Maria de Valldonzella (Sunday, 12 pm to 7 pm) brings us closer to religious modernism with a complex designed by Bernardí Martorell at the beginning of the 20th century.