Home to one of Barcelona’s few free museums, Caixaforum, Casaramona is art in its own right: an architectural gem of Modernisme, which no guide to the city should leave out.
Though functionality is not a feature commonly associated with Art Nouveau, this fabulous example of the Catalan brand, Modernisme, magnificently fulfilled its purpose in its day. Designed by architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch for the industrialist Casimir Casaramona, the factory aimed to balance the aesthetic and functional.

While it was unusual to devote such intense artistic effort to a factory, Casaramona was innovative for more reasons than its fantasy crenelations. From 1900-10, Barcelona’s 3 main textile factories suffered 251 fires, prompting Puig i Cadafalch to choose bricks and iron over timber, and install an unheard-of new fire system designed in England, called the sprinkler. He also opted for electricity over steam power, and a layout that enabled a production-line flow of carts to enter and exit the building without hindrance. For this project, the architect received the 1913 Annual Award for Artistic Buildings.

The factory did a roaring trade supplying towels and blankets during the Great War, but was hit by the 1919-20 slump. It lay unused until commissioned as one of Franco’s police stations in 1940, a function it fulfilled until 1992. In 2002, it became the headquarters of Caixaforum, la Caixa bank’s new exhibition centre.

Several architects were involved in its restoration, including Francisco Javier Asarta, Robert Brufau, Roberto Luna and Arato Isozaki. 100,000 bricks were especially moulded in the old style. Yet its original hurried construction meant 5 different brickworks had supplied the site. So a brick of new dimensions had to be designed that interlocked with all 5 types. The entrance foyer, through a basement of modern construction, is lined with 10-cm limestone slabs.

A stone’s throw from here, you can appreciate Puig i Cadafalch’s work for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition: his remodelling of Plaça Espanya along the lines of St Peter’s square in the Vatican; la Fira trade-fair complex and the “Palau de la Luz” on Montjuïc, now housing the MNAC. He also designed the emblematic four columns, representing the Catalan flag la senyera, torn down by dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1928, but recently restored.

Edifici Casaramona, Av. Marquès de Comillas,6-8

Over two hundred years later, in the lead-up to the 1992 Barcelona summer Olympics, the area of la Ribera, Poble Nou and Barceloneta was redesigned to open up the shoreline to the city and revamp Barcelona’s neglected port and beaches. The permanent exhibition Configuracions urbanes [Urban Configurations] consisting of 8 works by 2 Spanish and 6 foreign artists, inaugurated just days before the Games, aimed to link both neighbourhoods in an art route.

The guiding criteria for Urban Configurations sought to combine foreign and Spanish artists, works that would epitomise creative tension, art that was accessible to its public, in harmony with its physical and human environment and engaged in a dialogue with the space in which it was installed.

In the order of a stroll from carrer Comerç down to the beach, these works are:

Deuce Coop, James Turrell. This US artist’s neon installation in an 18th-century building—now a civic centre—revitalises and accentuates the old architecture. It contains an iconic Turell reference in the oculus and use of light. Its lustrous tranquillity encourages the viewer to take ample time to appreciate the installation fully at a meditative pace. This work, installed in the Civic Centre, is only available during opening times and activated by a sensor that turns it on after dusk: around 6 pm in winter and 9 pm in summer.

Deuce Coop, James Turrell, 1992. Centre Civic Convent de Sant Agustí, c. Comerç, 23, la Ribera. Opening hours (after dusk): Mon to Fri, until 10 pm; Saturdays, until 9 pm.

Born, Jaume Plensa. Consisting of several scattered iron forms—a large coffer and spheres evocative of cannonballs—this work focuses attention on the urban landscape of the tree-lined avenue, evoking the form of a ship. Yet it also references the Born’s history as a Medieval jousting yard, a key scenario in the 1714 siege of Barcelona and site of the city’s main wholesale market. The defunct market structure—an excellent example of late 19th-century ironwork—can be seen at the end of this avenue.

Born, Jaume Plensa, 1992. Passeig del Born/volta d’en Dusai, Born.

Sense títol (quatre falques) [Untitled (Four Wedges)], Ulrich Rückriem. This Düsseldorf artist, trained as a stone mason, installed four massive pieces of granite in the Pla del Palau, distributed in two pairs, which face the traffic like spectators. While much of his work conjures dramatic geological splendour, here the location is poor, causing many people to pass them by unseeing, as oblivious as to any other piece of urban furniture.

Sense títol (quatre falques) [Untitled (Four Wedges)], Ulrich Rückriem, 1992. Pla de Palau.

Rosa dels vents [Compass Rose], Lothar Baumgarten. This is a hard work to envisage as it extends over several hundred square metres of the Moll de la Barceloneta. Large bronze letters embedded in the pavement spell out in Catalan the names of the prevailing winds, indicating their direction. Though originally conceived to be placed closer geographically, it was deemed by the area’s architectural planners to have more impact in its present configuration. It is a further reference to the city’s strong maritime culture.

Rosa dels vents [Compass Rose], Lothar Baumgarten, 1992. Plaça Pau Vila, Moll de la Barceloneta.

Crescendo appare [Growing in Appearance], Mario Merz. For this neon installation embedded in the pavement, the internationally renowned Italian artist chose the Fibonacci sequence, a ratio that occurs naturally in objects such as the nautilus shell. Although discovered by several Indian mathematicians as early as 200 BCE or 700 CE, it received its name from an Italian, who defined the equation (Fn = Fn-1 + Fn-2) for the West in 1202. In short, starting from 0 and 1, you add the two previous numbers to find the next, producing the sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55…

Crescendo appare [Growing in Appearance], Mario Merz, plaça Pau Vila, Moll de la Barceloneta.

Balança romana [Roman Scales], Jannis Kounellis. Originally installed on the corner of Barceloneta’s Baluard and Almirall Cervera streets, this sculpture now lives outside the Civic Centre where carrer Miquel Boera meets Andrea Dòria. Like Jaume Plensa, the Greek-born Kounellis is paying homage to the port’s trading history. The work consists of a vertical conveyor, or scales, containing sacks of coffee beans, rising to the height of the seven-storey building against which it is installed. Kounellis characteristically sites his sculptures in the historic, often industrial, locations which they reference.

Balança romana [Roman Scales], Jannis Kounellis, 1993. Carrers Miquel Boera/ Andrea Dòria, Barceloneta.

L’Estel ferit [The Wounded Star], also known as Homenatge a la Barceloneta [Homage to Barceloneta], Rebecca Horn. Four, large iron boxes evoke an abandoned lighthouse more than ten metres high, recalling aspects of Barceloneta’s history such as its maritime past and the ramshackle beachfront restaurants which were popular eating places as late as 1990. (+ info)

L’Estel ferit [The Wounded Star], Rebecca Horn, 1992. Passeig Marítim, Barceloneta.

Una habitació on sempre plou [A Room Where It Is Always Raining], Juan Muñoz. Five caged figures growing from huge orbs gaze between the bars of their prison at the city or seascape. It is said the work was meant to include an installation from which water would continually rain down into the cage. (+ info)

Una habitació on sempre plou [A Room Where It Is Always Raining], Juan Muñoz, 1992. Plaça del Mar, Barceloneta.

Configuracions urbanes [Urban Configurations], 1992. La Ribera and La Barceloneta neighbourhoods.

Taking a free stroll along Barceloneta’s Passeig Marítim, you might miss seeing one of the artworks in the exhibition Configuracions urbanes [Urban Configurations], unless you are guided where to look. It is Una habitació on sempre plou [A Room Where It Is Always Raining, 1992] by Madrid artist, Juan Muñoz.

Maybe the partial seclusion offered by a surrounding grove of five trees is the reason the installation—one of Barcelona’s most striking artworks—is surprisingly unknown, despite being bang in the middle of a square that functions as the main gateway onto the beach. Five figures inhabit a double-arched aviary-like structure in leafy shade. The torso of each appears to grow from and remain captive to a heavy metal ball. Only details of clothing—conservative, casual, neat, even sumptuous—differentiate their anonymous yet virtually identical forms. However, despite their strong sense of group, they are curiously, almost wilfully blind to each other. The figures emanate conscious distancing—as if expending enormous amounts of energy to avoid seeing the bars of their cell, or their fellow inmates.

This concurrent unity and disparity is evocative of a group of political prisoners separated by ideological differences. Their gazes never quite connect with any point, either outward, or with each other. Apparently the work was meant to include water continually falling into the cage. However, the artist died before this could be implemented.

At around the time he produced this piece, Muñoz was beginning to work with “narrative” installations, using figures only slightly smaller than life-size, engaged in interaction. His installations invite viewers in, to interact, even to form part of them in a discreet manner.

In addition to the plastic arts, Muñoz was interested in atmospheric sound pieces, such as the BBC Radio 3 commission he created in collaboration with British composer Gavin Bryars, A Man in a Room, Gambling [1992]. He won the National Spanish Prize for Plastic Arts in 2000, but died of a heart attack in Ibiza just one year later, aged 48. At that time an exhibition of his was being shown at London’s Tate Gallery. His work can be found in the Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, in Madrid, as well as other Spanish and international collections.

Una habitació on sempre plou [A Room Where It Is Always Raining] by Juan Muñoz, 1992. Plaça del Mar, Barceloneta.

Many sculptures in this free guide around Poble Nou and along Barcelona’s beaches are the result of the urban development undertaken for the 1992 Olympic Games. Eight installations of particular value were unveiled under the exhibition title Configuracions urbanes [Urban Configurations]. This is the case of l’Estel ferit [The Injured Star, 1992] by Rebecca Horn.

This piece, also known as Homenatge a la Barceloneta [Homage to Barceloneta], consists of four, large iron boxes piled up into a crooked tower like an abandoned lighthouse [dimensions: 10.60 x 5.17 x 5.17 m]. The installation recalls aspects of Barceloneta’s historical development from an isolated sand spit to a densely inhabited metropolitan area. It mimics the rational, geometric layout of low-rise buildings imposed by military engineer Joris Prosper Van Verboom, who designed the street plan in 1753.

Residents had been displaced here from la Ribera neighbourhood due to construction of the Ciutadella fortress, and the authorities saw the need to impose order on this rapidly expanding fishing village. The installation’s salt-encrusted windows reveal an internal mast-like structure that evokes the area’s maritime past. Also referenced are the ramshackle beachfront restaurants (defying all sanitary or building regulations with anarchist bravado) which once extended their tables right down onto the sand and were popular eating places even as late as 1990. The mast carries neon tubes to light up the sculpture at night.

In her own words, Horn claims that “In 1964 I was 20 years old and living in Barcelona, in one of those hotels where you rent rooms by the hour. I was working with fibreglass, without a mask, because nobody said it was dangerous, and I got very sick.” Because of this, she spent a year in hospital, during which time her parents died, contributing to her isolation. Perhaps the piece’s title is a reference to this period. Yet the changes which these constrictions forced upon her work led to her well-known body modifications in pieces such as Unicorn [1970/72] or Pencil Mask [1972], and also to creating softer, cocoon-like creations like The Feathered Prison Fan [1978].

L’Estel Ferit [The Injured Star] by Rebecca Horn, 1992. Passeig Marítim, Barceloneta Beach.

On an unguided stroll around the port, you’re likely to come across this congruent couple by Chilean artist Lautaro Díaz, another photo favourite for those interested in the free sculpture which Barcelona beaches have to offer.
Slightly abstracted yet perfectly conveying that intense intimacy born of long trust, these figures in bronze, finished in a greenish patina, depict a pair of older lovers observing the sea.

An interesting detail is the man’s feet, almost resembling a fish’s tail. Is he a merman who has come up out of the waves to woo his earthbound lover, or are they both mer-folk, who have come out of the waves in order to watch the sunrise together? Díaz’s decision not to raise the pair onto a pedestal works well to bring them closer to their public: they radiate likeableness, encouraging a regular flow of viewers to snap a shot at their side.

Lautaro Díaz is the creator of another Barcelona sculpture, a homage to Salvador Allende, installed in plaça Salvador Allende, on 11 September 1997—to mark the 25th anniversary of the coup d’état that replaced Allende’s government with Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship. You can see an identical version of it—Allende’s head mounted on the wall—in the camp de Mart, Tarragona.

La Parella [The Couple] by Lautaro Díaz Silva, 1998. Moll de la fusta, Port Vell.

A perfect place to start your art tour along the beaches as well as being a sculpture mentioned in many Barcelona guides is Barcelona’s Head by North-American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.
Lichtenstein’s use of a mass media advertising aesthetic and comic imagery to confront staid perceptions on what “serious” art should be earned him international recognition in the sixties. Barcelona’s Head shows this same debt towards comic iconography yet is a far more complex development of this vocabulary. Still present are the bold lines, bright colours and dot background—recalling the Ben-Day process used in older comic-book printing—which characterise classic earlier works such as Whaam! (1963) and Drowning Girl (1963).

The sculpture, a commission for the 1992 Summer Olympics, was physically constructed by Diego Delgado Rajado, a Spanish artist from Badajoz over two years. It is inspired by and pays homage to Catalan Modernisme—the local brand of Art Nouveau. This can be seen in its nod towards trencadís, or broken tile mosaic, a Modernist technique popularised by the architects Antoni Gaudi and Lluís Domènech i Montaner.

15 m high by 6 m wide, it is made of eight large blocks of prefabricated artificial stone, stainless steel staples and ceramic cladding. Part of a series entitled “Brushstrokes”, the works convey the impression of a brisk, free execution.

Barcelona’s Head is installed on the site of the medieval shipyards where Columbus is supposed to have docked his ships. Other works from the “Brushstrokes” series can be found in US cities including Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Columbus and Los Ángeles, as well as internationally in Singapore, Tokyo, Paris and the Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid.

La Cara de Barcelona [Barcelona’s Head] by Roy Lichtenstein and Diego Delgado Rajado, 1992. Passeig de Colom, corner of Via Laietana, Port Vell.

The Torre de les Aigües includes a free ghost story in this guide to art in Barcelona. An early work by Josep Domènech i Estapà (1858-1917), it was commissioned when the company Sociedad Catalana para el Alumbrado de Gas—later Catalana de Gas—expanded its facilities to include a 45-m high water tower.

Despite his best efforts to design for the future, this octagonal tower rather evinces a conservativeness that links it to previous styles such as Enlightenment rationalism. While the conical roof and trencadís (ceramic mosaic decoration which Gaudí and Domènech i Muntaner would popularise) show a certain willingness to fantasise, the effect remains mannered. This use of some features of the new architecture—such as the tower’s exposed brickwork—is surprising, given that the architect’s rejection of Modernism extended as far as penning anti-Modernist treatises.

The story goes that, lacking technical skills to design the complex pumping mechanism required, Domènech i Estapà requested the services of a friend, a professor at the Escola Industrial de Barcelona, for its design. Pau, one of the school’s talented graduates undertook the project, which lasted two years. When it was finally inaugurated, attended by the top tier of Barcelona society, the pumping station failed to work. Shamed and humiliated, Pau desperately revised the installation over the following days yet, unable to find the error, he finally threw himself from the top of the tower.

Two weeks afterwards it was discovered that the installation had been designed perfectly. The fault lay in that the valves, shipped from Britain—a leading industrial nation—opened in the opposite direction to valves produced in other parts of Europe. A simple reversal was enough to fix the problem.

Some say that when traffic is scarce on the nearby Barcelona ring road and silence claims the park, you can hear somebody working away with a hammer within, rattling his toolbox. Others swear that English visitors to the tower are unable to see its vivid colours, perceiving only greyish hues.

References: Daniel Pinarello, http://www.bdebarna.net/v2/mapa.php?mapa_id=63&historia=182

Torre de les aigües de la companyia Catalana de Gas [Catalana de Gas water tower] by Josep Domènech i Estapà, 1907. Parc de la Barceloneta, Barceloneta.

Barcelona’s Montjuïc Mountain will unearth a trove of art. It has always been a popular excursion for the residents of Sants and Poble Sec neighbourhoods, its free mineral springs attracting large Sunday picnic crowds throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The mountain is dotted with many of these springs—works of art themselves—but none so renowned as the Font del Gat [spring of the cat] in the Laribal Gardens.

When landscape architects Forestier and Rubió Tudurí were commissioned to create gardens from the former estate of wealthy lawyer Josep Laribal for the 1929 International Exhibition, they chose as inspiration Granada’s Gardens of the Generalife, creating the different spaces of the font del Gat, the stairs of the Generalife and the Mediterranean gardens, which included three statues of female forms displaying differing styles from the late 1920s.

Repós (Rest, 1925) by Josep Viladomat, versioned on an original by Manolo Hugué, is carved in rough stone that well suits her heavy repose. The stylised, neo-Baroque lengthening of her limbs is also present in others of his works such as “Woman with Boy and Flute” in Plaça Catalunya. The accentuation of her full limbs prefigures Henry Moore’s later abstracting of positive and negative volumes.

The second figure, La noia de la trena (Girl with the Plait, 1928), by the same sculptor, is the most naturalist of the three. Cast in bronze with a dark patina, she could be Marieta of the lively eyes from the popular song about the Font del Gat, confidently baring herself for her tryst with the unknown soldier.

Most spectacular, however, is Estival (Summery, 1929), an Art Deco piece in white marble, created by Jaume Ortero. She is a seated figure, representing the atmosphere of summer, perfectly sited before a pool, within a Mediterranean-style rose garden. It is worth making this visit just to experience the harmony of this piece within its surroundings. Close by is an enamel-tiled fountain with marine motifs by ceramicist Llorenç Artigas.

For this visit, start at the top of the gardens, entering from passeig de Santa Madrona, just along from the Fundació Joan Miró. After seeing these sculptures, work your way down towards the font del Gat, where there is a recently restored nineteenth-century building that offers a restaurant. The cat’s head water spout is by Joan Antoni Homs, created in 1918 for the Laribal Gardens. Though tiny, this is arguably the most renowned fountain in Barcelona, thanks to the lyrics of the popular song by Joan Amich from the turn of the century “Marieta de l’ull viu” [Marieta of the lively eyes]:

Baixant de la font del Gat, [Coming down from the Font del Gat,]
una noia, una noia, [A young girl, a young girl,]
baixant de la font del Gat [Coming down from the Font del Gat,]
una noia amb un soldat. [A young girl with a soldier.]

Pregunteu-li com se diu, [Ask her what’s her name,]
Marieta, Marieta, [Marieta, Marieta,]
pregunteu-li com se diu, [Ask her what’s her name,]
Marieta, de l’ull viu. [Marieta of the lively eyes.]

Estival by Jaume Otero, 1929. Girl with the Plait by Josep Viladomat, 1928. Rest by Josep Viladomat, 1925. Jardins de Laribal, passeig de Sta Madrona, 2, Montjuïc.

A striking architectural vision in this guide to free art —possibly after visiting the gardens of Laribal further up Montjuïc— technically not quite free yet still integral to the city: the Barcelona Pavilion by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. While the entrance fee is minimal, we think it should be free! Though you can gain some appreciation of the pavilion’s clean design even if you remain outside, going inside is well worth it.

It is difficult to comprehend today what an overwhelming shock the pavilion’s precise, uncompromising geometric lines must have had on its 1920s public, the harshness with which it sheared away previous architectural styles. Built of glass, travertine and four different marble varieties, it is a stunning example of the German Modern Movement and was pivotal not only in Mies van der Rohe’s career but in architectural history. It inspires every generation that views it. The statue in the pond, a female nude, is Dawn by Georg Kolbe, one of Mies van der Rohe’s contemporaries. Most importantly, the world-famous Barcelona Chair—still marketed today—was designed by Mies van der Rohe specifically for this pavilion. You can view examples inside.

The Barcelona Pavilion may look post-war, but it originated in 1929, as a design for the German Pavilion at the Barcelona International exhibition. It was used for the reception of the king of Spain, Alphonse XIII. Though taken down in 1930, architect Oriol Bohigas initiated a project for its reconstruction in 1980, overseeing painstaking research, design and reconstruction to restore the building on its original site.

Mies van der Rohe was partnered both professionally and sentimentally at this time with interior designer Lilly Reich, shortly before he took over direction of the prestigious Bauhaus in 1930. Other buildings the couple presented during this period were the Glassraum (glass room) at the Stuttgart exhibition (1927), the Tugendhat house (Brno, 1928-1930) and a structure for the 1931 Berlin exhibition, which was to bring him into conflict with the Third Reich, leading to his eventual emigration to the US.

The Barcelona Pavilion by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1929. Av. Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 7, Montjuïc.

Our route of free art continues from David and Goliath, to the nearby plaça dels Voluntaris, where Robert Llimós’s sculpture Frame, like Botero’s Cat, attracts constant attention: kids to clamber over it and couples to pose for the typical Barcelona snapshot. Yet its inauguration attracted no less controversy.

David Mackay, the architect from the firm that designed the general plan for the Olympic Village, protested that the sculpture did not fit “either in style, in scale, or for its site”(1). This in turn prompted an open letter from a group of artists, including Frederic Amat, Xavier Corber, Gardy-Artigas and Xavier Medina-Campeny, defending Llims and attacking architecture’s insistent encroachment on artistic terrain.

Daubed with dashes of colour, characteristic of Llimós’s enthusiasm for the primaries and neon tones, Frame (in Catalan: “Marc”, means both “frame” and the boy’s name), is dedicated to the artist’s deceased son. It is an anonymous, genderless nude, stepping towards and supporting a large, rectangular frame in a well-balanced composition. Is the figure about to step through into another reality—possibly to disturb the static viewer-object hierarchy—or is it content to observe from its side of the frame? It challenges our idea of a picture, of nice art. What should the content be? Simply by moving a few steps we can insert a new scene, allowing us as viewers to maintain hegemony yet—over what? Our own point of view.

Frame likewise seems to frame the past. It captures the receding flagpoles of all the nations who participated in the ’92 Olympics, as well as all the volunteers who gave their free time to make that event a success—for which the square is named. An identical work entitled Threshold was installed in Atlanta, where the ’96 Games following Barcelona’s were held, offering a nebulous desire for continuance, a sisterly link between Olympic cities—although this work was created well after the body of works developed for the Barcelona Games. Yet once again the sculpture’s environs have become inextricably bound into its interpretation.

Frame by Robert Llimós, 1997. Plaça dels Voluntaris, Vil·la Olímpica.