Barcelona City Hall Restoration, Barcelona

Details

Site: Barcelona
Use: Administrative, Cultural

Description
The complex of the Barcelona City Council is made up of three buildings. Firstly, there is the old building, six-hundred years old, a veritable treatise of the history of the city that displays different styles, from Gothic through to Modernism. The second is the “new” building, raised as a result of the International Exhibition of 1929; and finally, the building known as “novíssimo”, planned in 1958, a polemical vertical construction in the very heart of the old quarter of the city.

The administrative decentralisation of the council meant it was possible to plan a general remodelling. The urban planning objectives began by recovering the historical dimension of the Plaça Sant Miquel. The idea was to give this ill-treated space more dignity by means of the following actions: the movement of the car park from the square, the appreciation of the Roman ruins in the subsoil and the removal of the three upper storeys of the “novíssimo” building. The aim was to establish an urban autonomy between the three buildings and a skyline more suited to the section of Ciutat Vella, the old city.

The functional objectives of the whole are to strengthen the permeability of the buildings for urban use. An entrance to the three buildings from a single vestibule is provided. An improvement in the connection between the three buildings is planned, thus eliminating the labyrinthine character and architectural barriers. Finally, a site was sought for the council chamber: more comfortable, well equipped and with a greater capacity. The architectural proposals set out in the remodelling start from a general softening of the buildings, based on the elimination of additions and corners produced due the indiscriminate accumulation of uses. In the historic building the aim is to emphasise the singularity of the Saló de Cent chamber, making the whole complex more comprehensible.

Project Name: Barcelona City Hall Restoration, Barcelona
Site:Plaça de Sant Miquel, 3, 08002 Barcelona
Use: Administrative, Cultural
Project date: 1983
Construction start date: 1989
Construction end date:1992
Property:Ajuntament de Barcelona
Floor area: 57.581,69 m²
Awards:
FAD Architecture Awards 1992

Authors: Manuel Brullet Tenas i Albert Pineda Alvarez
Contributors: Alfonso de Luna, Xavier Llambrich, Joachim Staudt, Christian Huber, Mateu Barba, Anna Granell, Conxita Balcells, Xavier Hernández, Jaume Valor, Toni Vilanova, Jordi Barba, Francesc Pernas
Surveyors: Josep Mª Sanmartín, Joan Rivas, Francès Xurigué
Facilities: JG Ingenieros S.A.
Structure: Manuel Arguijo y Asociados S.L.
Builder: Cubiertas MZOV, COPISA
Photographer: Lluís Casals, Carolina Garcia, Eduardo Armentia, Juny Brullet
Publications: