The Barcelona that has conquered the world with its architecture has proper names: Gaudí, Domènech i Montaner and Puig i Cadafalch. Their works, with the sinuous forms and ornamental details of the Eixample facades, have contributed to projecting an image of a city recognized worldwide. But Barcelona's architecture goes far beyond the monuments that make it famous. It also takes shape in schools, hospitals, sports centers and homes: everyday spaces that, precisely because they are part of daily life, often go unnoticed.
It is this architecture, more discreet but essential, that the 48h Open House Barcelona festival has been championing for over fifteen years. Every autumn, for one weekend, the festival invites visitors to cross doors that usually remain closed and discover buildings that often go unnoticed. Schools, hospitals, sports centers and homes share the program with palaces, historic buildings and other heritage spaces. Through free visits, guided tours and explanations by volunteers and architecture professionals, visitors can learn what is hidden behind the facades and discover how spaces condition the way people live, work, learn and interact.
This invitation to look at architecture with different eyes will take shape again on the weekend of October 24 and 25, in an edition that will open the doors of 217 buildings in six municipalities. Barcelona will concentrate 155 visitable spaces, but the festival will also extend to Badalona, l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Vilassar de Dalt and Sitges. Under the slogan "Life without architecture", this edition proposes imagining what would happen if buildings disappeared: where would one study, work or spend free time? And what spaces would remain for self-care, meeting and living together? Questions that highlight the extent to which architecture, beyond monuments, is essential in daily life.
Questions especially pertinent in a year in which Barcelona acts as World Capital of Architecture. On the occasion of this event, the 48h Open House has exceptionally expanded the usual format of the festival, which every autumn opens the doors of numerous buildings in the city and its surroundings, with three special editions throughout the year. Under the name Open Barri, this initiative —launched this year due to the Capitality—, has dedicated the winter, spring, and summer editions to discovering the architectural heritage of three areas of Barcelona that often fall outside the most well-known circuits: La Marina, Nou Barris and Sarrià-Vallvidrera.
Now, with the arrival of autumn, the festival resumes its general event, with a program that extends through Barcelona and five other municipalities. But the perspective that Open Barri has brought to different areas of the city is also reflected in this edition, which incorporates everyday spaces and buildings far from the most common monumental circuits. “When we think about where good architecture is, we usually refer to areas like Ciutat Vella or Eixample. But good architecture is everywhere; you just have to stop and observe,” says Elisenda Bonet, director of the 48H Open House Barcelona association, in an interview with The New Barcelona Post.
For this reason, some of the buildings showcased through the three editions of Open Barri are also incorporated into the general autumn program, such as the old farmhouse of Can Valent, in Nou Barris. This continuity responds to a desire that goes beyond discovering unknown spaces: to get residents to recognize the architectural and historical value of their surroundings. “Claiming architecture is also an exercise in collective self-esteem,” says Bonet. When the history of the buildings that are part of the everyday landscape is discovered, the way of looking at the neighborhood and valuing a heritage that, being so close, often goes unnoticed, also changes.
A renewed program to discover architecture beyond the classics
The additions from the Open Barri are not the only novelties of this year's edition, in a program that includes 63 buildings that had not participated in any previous edition, about 28% of the total. Renewing the selection is, in fact, one of the constants of the festival, which every year combines emblematic spaces, capable of attracting thousands of visitors and generating queues of up to three hours, with new additions that allow discovering other ways of understanding architecture.
This desire to make way for new spaces also implies letting some of the most popular ones rest. This year, neither the Arc de Triomf nor the former Model prison, two of the most requested buildings in previous editions, are part of the route. Their place is occupied by new proposals, as diverse as the CEM Espronceda, a neighborhood sports facility; the Institut-Escola El Molí, the result of the transformation of two educational centers in Nou Barris, or the CCOO de Catalunya building, on Via Laietana.
The renovation also allows giving visibility to emerging architects and discovering newly rehabilitated heritage buildings. As Elisenda Bonet explains, the festival also offers the opportunity to visit some spaces at a very specific moment: just when the works have finished and before the residents move in or the facilities start operating. In some cases, it is the architects themselves who explain the projects to visitors, in addition to the thousand volunteers who make the organization and visits to the participating spaces possible.
More than recommending specific buildings, Bonet proposes discovering the festival by zones: choosing a building that arouses interest and exploring what is around it, without many expectations, to let oneself be surprised. This way of touring the program, without having to plan each visit, fits with the very conception of the festival, designed so that the different points are close to each other. "The festival is designed so that, every fifteen minutes of travel, there is another building to discover," Bonet exemplifies.
But, given the breadth of the program and the difficulty of choosing among so many proposals, this year the festival has also incorporated a new tool: the Recommender. Beyond searching by building typology, already available on the website, or by architectural style, this tool invites to explore the program through the five senses. Based on questions about tastes and sensations, it suggests buildings that allow discovering architecture from a less conventional perspective.
From historic palaces to sports centers: 10 buildings that reveal another Barcelona
Beyond The Recommender, you can also start the route through ten buildings that, for very different reasons, deserve a careful look. The New Barcelona Post has made a selection that goes beyond the best-known names and focuses on the variety of stories, uses, and architectural forms that the program hides.
To begin discovering this Barcelona that often goes unnoticed, the Llotja de Mar is a good gateway. Located at a common crossing point for many Barcelonians, it is one of those buildings you may have passed thousands of times without ever having seen its interior. Behind the facade lies a combination of medieval and neoclassical architecture, but also key episodes in the city's economic and cultural history: the Taula de Canvi, one of Europe's first public banking institutions, was headquartered here, and, according to tradition, the origin of the term bancarrota (bankruptcy) is found here, in addition to having been the protagonist of the first photograph captured in Spain.
Other buildings that the festival exceptionally opens to the public are the Cercle del Liceu, a private club to which only members and their guests usually have access, which reserves its modernist interiors and Ramon Casas's works for a privileged few, and the Palau del Marquès d’Alfarràs, in the Laberint d’Horta gardens. With origins dating back to the 11th century, when it was a defensive tower that later became an agricultural estate, the palace hides almost a thousand years of history. This palace was also one of the settings for the renowned film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and, after a long period without public access, rehabilitation works have allowed its heritage value to be recovered and its neo-Arab decorative details preserved.
But not only large historical buildings hide stories worth discovering during the 48h Open House Barcelona. In Badalona, the well-known Reforma Badalona allows observing how a 1910 house can adapt to current needs without erasing the traces of the past. This desire to preserve the imprints of other eras is also visible in the old farmhouse of Can Valent, in Nou Barris. Amidst the current urban fabric, the farmhouse preserves the memory of a landscape of fields and paths prior to the growth of Barcelona.
The Garraf beach houses are another example of popular heritage that has endured over time. Built from the late 1920s to house fishermen, railway workers, and holidaying families, these small constructions have become an inseparable part of the coastal landscape. And even hotels, spaces that we often associate with tourists and that go unnoticed by many Barcelonians, can hide an architectural interest that goes beyond their function. The Torre Melina Gran Melià, in Les Corts, combines a hotel with a historic palace and gardens that are also part of the city's heritage.
But architecture can also be discovered in the spaces that are part of everyday life. The CEM Espronceda, in the Navas neighborhood, stands out for how it uses a plot between party walls to house sports courts and, at the same time, opens the sports center to the neighborhood with an access square and landscaped patios. The CEU Abat Oliba University, located in the old convent of the Oblates, combines the heritage value of the building with its current educational function. On Via Laietana, the CCOO de Catalunya building, designed by Josep Domènech i Mansana, has been partially hidden behind scaffolding and tarpaulins for years. Now, the visit thanks to the 48H Open House allows discovering its interior and contemplating the avenue from an unusual point of view. Different spaces, however, that remind us that architecture is not limited to large monuments: it is also in the places where we learn, practice sports or socialize, and which often go unnoticed despite being part of the city's life.