The Foneria de Canons de la Rambla in Barcelona will be reborn as a digital culture center after more than 20 years of inactivity. The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and the Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, presented this Wednesday the project that will convert the building into a center for research, experimentation, and development of digital artistic and cultural projects, with an exhibition space open to the public. The center is expected to be fully operational in 2027.
The objective of the complex will be to promote, foster, and consolidate individuals and companies dedicated to digital creativity. "We want to collaborate with cultural centers across the country, which should find in the Foneria a shared workspace," said Minister Garriga. In parallel, she emphasized that the Government's aim is to position Catalonia "on the map of prestigious digital cultural centers," reports ACN. Aragonès expressed a similar sentiment, assuring that it will be an "innovative" space, combining research with creation and dissemination. He also added that it will be a "meeting point and experimentation hub for professionals and artists from Catalonia and around the world who work in the field of digital culture."
The intention is for the Foneria to have a "clear impact on the revitalization of the entire lower part of La Rambla and Ciutat Vella" and to also be a gateway to the Catalunya Media City, the large audiovisual and digital hub projected in Les Tres Xemenies. The Government's idea is for it to function as a test bed and testing ground for projects that will later form part of the large facility in Besòs and, at the same time, it will offer the contents of the Catalunya Media City to the public, taking advantage of La Rambla's central location.
Rectangular in plan, the building has a constructed area of 3,380 square meters, divided into 5 floors: ground floor, mezzanine floor, and 3 upper floors (the top one will be dedicated to services). This property, owned by the Generalitat, is cataloged as a Cultural Asset of Local Interest (BCIL).
With a budget of 13 million euros, the building's renovation works will be divided into two phases. The tender for the rehabilitation works of the facade is already underway, execution will begin in January 2024 and will last throughout next year. The competition for the architectural reform and the drafting of the project for the interior will also be carried out during the next fiscal year. In this way, the interior renovation works are expected to begin in 2025 and the center to open to the public in 2027.
Cannon Foundry and former Bank of Barcelona
The Foneria de Canons building, also called Antiga Foneria Real de Canons or Antiguo Banco de Barcelona, is located at number 2 of La Rambla in Barcelona. Built at the end of the 17th century, it was renovated in 1858 by the architect Josep Oriol Mestres. In 1537, Emperor Charles ordered the Consell de Cent to establish a royal cannon foundry on La Rambla. After the defeat of 1714, Philip V prohibited the local manufacture of artillery and the Foneria began to produce bells, among other objects.
In 1844, the banker and politician Manuel Girona converted the building into the headquarters of the Banco de Barcelona and, in 1858, renovated it in neoclassical style. The Banco de Barcelona went bankrupt in 1920 and the building closed its doors, until, in 1934, it was used as the headquarters of the General Command of the Cos de Sometents. After the Civil War, the building came under the Military Government and a military pharmacy and offices were installed there. In 2003, the Ministry of Defense, until then the owner of the building, sold it to the Generalitat.
The future digital culture center
The content program of the Foneria de Canons will revolve around three key points: being a center for research, incubation and development of digital culture projects; being a space open to citizens, and a work center.
As a center for research, incubation and project development, there will be a creative space to conceive, conceptualize and develop digital creations with cutting-edge technology, with a focus on research and experimentation in digital culture. These will be laboratories, creation spaces, workshops and classrooms.
It will also be a functional and modern work center available to professionals, technologists and researchers, with technical and material resources to meet their needs. This shared physical workspace will have an advisory service for administrations, companies and entities on digital culture.
As a center open to the public, it will have, on the one hand, a floor dedicated to exhibition spaces and dissemination of artistic projects – some of an immersive nature – which will host digital art exhibitions by emerging and/or established creators and, on the other, areas for the direct experience of the initiatives worked on in the center itself. In addition, multipurpose areas and pedagogical workshops will form a training space to become a meeting point for the ecosystem.
Regarding the distribution of uses of the future facility, 910 square meters have been planned for exhibition space (reception, exhibition halls, warehouses, etc.) on the two lower floors and 716 square meters for work and training spaces (workshops, laboratories, multipurpose areas and classrooms) on the upper floors.
To define these uses and the main lines of action of the facility, the Department of Culture commissioned a study to learn about the best practices of digital culture centers around the world and their areas of excellence. Thus, the program is inspired by the lines of work of facilities such as the Gaîté Lyrique (Paris), Meet (Milan), ZKM (Karlsruhe), V2 (Rotterdam) and the Ars Electronica of Linz.