Designed by the Catalan architecture co-op Lacol, “La Borda” was built in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona a little over a year before the pandemic hit. When Spain’s lockdowns (some of the strictest in Europe) went into effect, the communal nature of the building made it possible for residents to continue socializing in shared spaces like the kitchen, laundry, and multipurpose room, avoiding the severe isolation many in single-family dwellings experienced.

The 28-unit structure was also designed with enough flexibility to adapt to the needs of its members during a pandemic. “It was a privilege to live through COVID here,” says Cristina Gamboa, one of the two principal architects on the project and a resident of La Borda. “It showed that these spaces allow for the sort of interaction that wouldn’t be possible in a conventional apartment block. For example, the guest rooms couldn’t be used because no one was traveling, so they became workspaces.”

The idea of the cooperative development was hatched in 2011, when the abandoned Can Batlló industrial site was occupied by locals as part of a campaign to return the land to the community. The next year, a plan was formed to revitalize the area with a co-op residential building, as well as a school, bar/restaurant, publishing house, and carpentry workshop.

When the Lacol architects were tasked with creating the co-op, they outlined three fundamental principles for the project. The first was to “redefine the collective housing program” by encouraging social interaction in every corner of the design. All 28 living units, the kitchen-dining room, guest spaces, health and care rooms, storage, and patios are centered around a multi-story courtyard, providing for maximum community contact.

The second goal was to incorporate “sustainability and environmental quality.” The architects explain: “We started from the conviction that the best strategy is to reduce the initial demand of all the environmental vectors of the building (energy, water, materials, and waste), especially at the energy level, where we prioritized passive strategies to achieve maximum use of existing resources.” For example, 20 solar panels on the roof provide a quarter of the building’s energy needs.

Third, Lacol designers sought to foster user participation. The collective management of La Borda means that residents are in charge of determining the use of the space. The building is located on a piece of public land set aside for social housing that the co-op board can lease for up to 75 years. Co-op members do not own their flats and cannot sell or sublet them, emphasizing the “use value” above the “exchange value” of the units. While members do have to pay a one-time refundable fee of €18,500, the monthly rent is still 30 to 35 percent below market rates. With rents and housing prices climbing quickly, 80 percent of Spain’s 18 to 30-year-olds still live with their parents. Living spaces like La Borda would make it much more affordable for people to establish their own households. As a testament to its desirability, the co-op already has a 50-person wait list.

The Mies van der Rohe Foundation praised the design as “a role model and an active tool for promoting political and urban change from within the system, based on social, ecological, and economic sustainability.”

Lacol was awarded the honor and the €20,000 at an official ceremony on May 12th. The company adds that some of the money will be used for a celebratory dinner for the La Borda renters and those who helped make the project a reality.

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At last, the client was able to hire Raúl Sánchez Architects to give the space a new lease on life. That required ripping out almost everything inside and starting from scratch, maintaining only the facades, dividing walls, and roof slab. As hard as it was to get past all of these hurdles, the slow progression gave the architects a few striking moments of inspiration. They began to see the building as a vessel for what would become its defining feature: a stunning four-story spiral staircase at its heart.

“The construction process, slow and complex, at least allowed decisions to be made as the essence of the estate was revealed with the demolitions,” they explain. “Thus, once all the floors slabs had been demolished and the building was seen as a slender and tall prism formed by walls with a completely heterogeneous composition of all kinds of bricks and stones arranged without apparent order or composition, the idea of leaving all these walls exposed became conceptual: these four walls, over 15 meters high, are a museum of the building’s history, where any trace of its construction (arches, lintels, stairs, and beams), and of its use (mortar remains, furnishings, claddings) will be left unaltered, exposed in all its crudeness.”

When putting in the floors for the three upper levels, the architects chose not to extend them all the way to the original brick walls. Instead, they placed sheets of glass in between, creating a four-story void looking all the way up to the roof. Not only does this help transmit daylight through the home, it continually draws attention to the sculptural beauty of the staircase as you ascend.

The juxtaposition of the smooth spiral staircase with the textural original brick is what makes the space sing. Left exposed and visible, the remnants of the building’s past hint at a complex history that seems even more remarkable when placed beside new elements like the gleaming brass kitchen suite. The kitchen was placed on the ground floor and a bathroom lined with lacquered wood on the second.

The architects add: “In terms of materiality, a certain refinement has been pursued in the new elements to be implemented, in opposition to the crude expressiveness of the existing walls, conscious that the space must house a home. Thus, the kitchen is a frosted brass piece of furniture, shiny and with reflections, with a white marble top; the bathroom equipment is paneled with lacquered wood in a slightly cream color, with black and brass details; the ‘headboards’ of the floors are covered in white microcement; the hydraulic mosaic, microcement, and oak floors add warmth and color to the interior; and the lacquered wood ceilings incorporate registers and grids to ‘design’ these needs.”

Service elements like the electric cables, air conditioning system, and telephone wires are routed within six steel tubes running vertically along one wall, themselves forming another interesting visual element. The other levels have been left mostly empty so the occupants can use them as bedrooms, offices, or anything else they like without restrictions.

Outside, the tall and narrow home maintains its historic charm, complete with balconies at every level, but the architects added what might be one of the coolest front doors you’ve ever seen. Made of three different kinds of aluminum, it features a graphic rhomboid-based design in a tribute to the traditional tile motifs found inside.

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Situated along a narrow street in the coastal town of Arenys de Mar, this three-story house has faced some significant challenges over the years. For starters, it had been forgotten by the municipal planning in the latest update, standing as a ghost of a former city plan. Then the owner’s tenant had to abandon the space to move to a nursing home, leaving it totally vacant for over a year. To top it off, leaks in the roof allowed water to filter through the three stories during this time until it all but destroyed the first floor’s wooden structure.

When the architects of Barcelona-based Twobo studio took on the refurbishment of the five-by-five meter home, they actually let these damages guide their design process.

“The water paved the way for us,” the team explains. “Sunlight filtered through the hole left by the collapse of the structure. Could it be that the solution for this small house was precisely to ‘lose’ more meters?”

The tall, skinny dwelling shares walls on three sides with other buildings, with the front facade opening onto a street less than 10 feet wide with almost no sidewalk. Adding a skylight on the third floor and expanding each stairwell allowed in more light, helping the roughly 256 square feet of each floor feel bigger than it really is. The ground floor also got boost of sunlight when the Twobo architects punched out a larger hole in the facade, lining the entire entry with oversize windows and creating a threshold that “transforms the street into part of the house.”

Next came the addition of other permanent features. A compact kitchen was installed on the lower level, with room for cooking essentials and a table with a room-wide tiled-bench that forms a banquette. The existing ceiling beams were left exposed in here to show off all their aged and well-worn glory. Patches of a former blue paint also retain their spot of honor on the ceiling as a nod to the home’s long history.

A sink was added on the second floor and the water closet was cleverly hidden in what looks like a large set of cupboards. The rest of the space on that level houses a full-size bed near a window overlooking the street. Above that, the third floor is reserved for storage, with two oversize wardrobes hung on the wall over the stairwell. The entire home was painted white, with the light, natural wood and tawny floor tiles providing accent color for a fresh and minimalist vibe.

The Twobo architecture studio was formed over a decade ago in Spain by family members Pablo and Alberto Twose and María Pancorbo. Their work has covered technical architecture, interior design services, and landscaping, as well as furniture and fixture design. Their ultimate goal is to find the “apparent simplicity” in each creative project.

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Casa Vicens is considered one of the very first buildings of the Art Nouveau movement, and its colorful facade has long drawn tourists and design aficionados to the neighborhood of Grácia. It’s also a beautiful example of Neo-Mudéjar (Moorish) architecture, one of the styles Gaudí experimented with throughout his career. Completed when he was 31 years old, Casa Vicens represents the first time Gaudí mixed Moorish influences with those of Spain and Catalan, a style he would hone and apply to many more buildings over the ensuing decades.

For 132 years, members of the public could only gaze upon Casa Vicens’ vividly detailed facade and imagine what the interiors looked like. But in 2014, the home sold to Andorran bank MoraBanc for an undisclosed sum, and in 2017, this UNESCO World Heritage Site was transformed into a museum, granting access to nearly all interior spaces. Casa Vicens general manager Emili Masferrer i Fons will serve as the Airbnb host for the special stay, sharing his “insights and secrets” from the recent restoration project during an exclusive tour of the house.

“We are excited to give guests the opportunity to experience this house as Gaudí designed it – as a nature oasis,” says Masferrer i Fons. “We are deeply committed to the preservation of Gaudí’s cultural heritage, and it will be a great pleasure to share the building’s secrets and rich history with whoever books.”

The museum will be closed to the public during the stay, so the guests will enjoy having Casa Vicens all to themselves. After their tour, they’ll be treated to a Gaudí-inspired Michelin star menu in the dining room, followed by a nightcap in the smoking room. To top it all off, they’ll be sleeping in the most lavish bedroom of the house, the private chambers of the Vicens family. In the morning, they’ll enjoy a full Mediterranean breakfast in the private city garden.

If you’re sad you missed this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, take heart: you can still visit Barcelona and see Casa Vicens in person, if only just for the day. The award-winning restoration of the house by Martínez Lapeña is certainly worth a long, slow tour taking in every last detail of Gaudí’s maximalist brilliance. If travel isn’t in the cards for you anytime soon (thanks, Delta variant), the museum also offers a 30-minute virtual tour for €4.99.

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The Eixample neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain was originally laid out in the late 1800s, with wide streets organized on a perfect grid. This canvas provided artists, designers, and architects the perfect opportunity to be creative in their works. As a result, the area hosts the highest concentration of art nouveau architecture in all of Europe.

“Modernisme,” the Catalan term for art nouveau, took off in the late 19th century as a reflection of all things natural. But nature was far from the only architectural theme of an era that also included intense nationalism alongside a rebirth of art, music, opera, and literature. The paradox is that although the terms “art nouveau” and “renaissance” are both accurate here, historically speaking this was actually the Industrial period.

That didn’t stop resident Francesc Burés i Borràs from commissioning a home of grandeur that highlighted the art nouveau zeitgeist of the era. He hired architect Francesc Berenguer i Mestres for the job, an associate of the iconic art nouveau architect Antoni Gaudí. The finished five-story home included a ground floor office, first floor living area for the family, three upper-level rental apartments, and an attic space that housed the servants. Although the floorplan was standard for the time, the design elements stood out as Neo-Gothic and included sculptures, hand-painted murals, mosaics, and stained glass. Around ten years later, the art nouveau style began to fade as art deco and international modernism took center stage.

Over 100 years after the original 1900 build, the residence was left abandoned, neglected, and pilfered. It wasn’t until very recently that a company called Bonavista Developments, who specializes in revamping historic buildings into modern apartments, came to the rescue. Although the building had been vacant for more than four years, it enjoyed landmark status since 1979, which offered protection while the crew documented every nook and cranny of its 80,000 square feet. Through painstaking reconstruction and restoration, modern heating and cooling systems were installed behind the original walls. The original 10 rooms were converted into 26 apartments, and a gym and rooftop pool were added.

The crew then brought in interior design firm Estudio Vilablanch to tackle the furnishings in the kitchens, bathrooms, and more. They attended to the lighting and textiles that offer a peaceful, tranquil vibe when paired the backdrop of accents and embellishments from the original architecture. 

“That allows the period details in the building to ‘breathe,’” co-founder Agnès Vilablanch says. “We wanted to be very honest with what we found but avoid making it look like a museum.” Adds co-founder Elina Vilá: “With so much color and ornamentation already there, we aimed at serenity.”

Today, the Casa Burés stands as a reminder of a decadent era in the design world that is rarely seen today — a time when art and architecture joined forces as a testament to the creativity, imagination, and skills of their creators.

Photos courtesy of InteriorDesign.com

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In Barcelona’s Eixample district, architects Anna and Eugeni Bach turned a beautiful but highly challenging apartment into a cozy live/work residence where everything has its place. The corner flat has an unusual floor plan featuring four diagonally angled rooms, including a trapezoidal kitchen. There’s minimal square footage to work with, but the historic building features some absolutely stunning architectural details, like tray ceilings, a marble fireplace, and ornate wooden doors.

The owners want to use the apartment as a study for the next 15 years, at which point they’ll retire and live there. That means it has to be both multifunctional and comfortable to live in, while also offering the possibility of hosting their future grandchildren. The living room, entryway, and bedroom extend from the back wall at a 45-degree angle that’s known as “chamfered,” a layout that’s not uncommon in Barcelona’s older neighborhoods.

The biggest and most successful intervention is the plywood built-in cabinetry extending along the flat’s one straight exterior wall, from the kitchen into the living room. The architects envisioned it as a home for all of the apartment’s “services,” including the kitchen cabinets and appliances, bookcases, closets, bathroom, and even a set of built-in stairs leading up to the uppermost level of storage space. Made of smooth, pale plywood and devoid of most visible hardware, this cabinet brings a contemporary feel to the home and unifies its two main rooms.

At the same time, dynamic new flooring subtly separates each space from the next while maintaining a cohesive look. In the kitchen, marble tiles follow the angle of the built-in cabinet, butting up against the straight line of the patterned hallway flooring. The living room, bedroom, and entryway all have their own unique colors and patterns, too, contrasting the clean feeling of the white walls and wooden accents.

“The rest of the house is left practically intact,” say the architects. “The floors, ceilings, and carpentry that were kept in good condition are recovered to establish a careful contrast with the service furniture. A contrast that brings together both the two directions of the chamfer, and the two times of intervention in the history of the house.”

Even if the stairs of the cabinet don’t exactly lead anywhere, since there’s no loft, they still add an interesting graphic element to the design, as does their minimalist ceiling-mounted railing. The cabinet doesn’t just disguise all the little things that would otherwise create too much visual clutter, it anchors the whole apartment. Little design details like the leather pull on the bathroom door and ornate brackets on the mirror above the fireplace are just icing on the cake.

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Artist and educator Jordi Ferreiro is known for shaking up the status quo in museums and other cultural institutions by inserting installations and performances into guided tours. In 2020, he was commissioned to take an experimental approach to the educational program at La Capella museum in Barcelona, itself a beautiful, cathedral-like space in the neighborhood of El Raval.

His immediate goal was to create more intimacy between guests and exhibitions while making the space more comfortable for the local residents it hopes to serve. El Raval is a vibrant neighborhood that’s historically working class but rapidly gentrifying. Throughout the year, Ferreiro has been working with schools and local organizations to bring art to the people, even temporarily relocating some children’s exhibits to public spaces.

Inside the actual museum, Ferreiro wanted to turn this space “into a nexus for residents in the Raval,” forging deep and lasting connections between the historic institution and the city. La Capella and Ferreiro then collaborated with artist Lluis Alexandre Casanovas to create “Exedra,” portable auditorium-style seating that removes the barriers between viewers and art.

“One of the aims of the design was to move away from standardized institutional approaches to participation and social engagement — ones which emphasize do-it-yourself aesthetics and the use of primary colors referencing pedagogic spaces,” says Casanovas. “This design emphasized light, and was made to be portable, in order that it could be placed amidst the exhibition space, directly confronting the artworks to be discussed.”

“This presented a two-fold challenge. On the one hand, the design needed to create an intimate space for conversation in the huge, gothic venue. On the other hand, the design needed to not interfere and distort the actual environment of the exhibition space. The final design consists in two symmetrical stands, each of them weighing only 70 kilograms and movable by a single person, thus easing the relocation of the piece in a facility with reduced staff.”

Of course, the coronavirus pandemic has altered some of the museums’ plans for the year, subsequently rendering “Exedra” a little less powerful than it might have been otherwise. It was originally intended to be used in groups of two or more, creating modular semi-circular seating that faces the art and the museum guide while allowing interaction between the guests. The seating allows anyone of any age and ability level to participate equally, effectively placing all visitors at the same level, since wheelchair users can simply park beside the benches.

To stay safe in the COVID-19 era, La Capella keeps the two main seating areas separate from each other, placing similar accessory structures and chairs among ambiance-enhancing indoor plants nearby. They also help establish appropriate distancing between groups who aren’t in the same household.

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Hoping to shine a spotlight on Reich’s under-recognized skills as a designer, the Mies van der Rohe Foundation recently launched the second phase of a grant program set up in her name. The foundation previously set up a research grant along the same lines, and the resulting exhibition by Laura Martínez de Guereñu, “Re-enactment: Lilly Reich’s Work” still occupies the Barcelona Pavilion (designed by Reich herself), where it will remain on display until July 15th, 2020. Specifically, the research-based exhibit represents Lilly Reich’s influence by reconstructing two display cases similar to the ones she designed herself for the International Exposition of 1929. It also transforms the spatial experience of the pavilion by reclaiming its connection with Reich’s work on the Noucentista Palaces of Montjuïc.

The Foundation has previously stated that “the results of the first-edition research show the need to continue studying the person and work of Lilly Reich: the Lilly Reich Grant of Academic research will insist on deepening the knowledge and dissemination of this essential figure in the history of modern architecture.”

The Mies van der Rohe Foundation has a special reason to honor this particular designer, since she worked in a partnership with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe on several notable projects in the past, including the aforementioned German section of the 1929 World Exhibition in Barcelona. The two also collaborated on the acclaimed Tugendhat House in Brno, Czech Republic and, perhaps most notably, the masterpiece of modern architecture that is the Barcelona Pavilion.

Marking the 135th anniversary of Lilly Reich’s birth (June 16th, 1885, Berlin), the second edition of the Lilly Reich Grant for equality in architecture is focused on high-school aged students in an effort to encourage further research into the designer’s life and work.

“We are thrilled to present the new call of the Lilly Reich Grant for equality in architecture, and we are especially happy to include the teenage community in this fight for equality through research and knowledge,” says the foundation’s Executive Director Anna Ramos.

A total of five grants will be awarded with a cash value of €300 each, with winners also receiving bibliographical or educational material worth €200 for the educational center of their choosing. Each winning project will also be published on the official FMVDR website.

The brief regarding the project reads: “Lilly Reich Grant for Senior High School Students Research Projects focuses on the study, dissemination, and visibilization of contributions to architecture that have been unduly relegated or forgotten, or carried out by architectural professionals that have received discriminatory treatment, and that promote equal access to the practice of architecture worldwide.”

With any luck, grants like these will continue inspiring youth, encouraging an interest in the history of design as a foundation for the future, and honoring equality within all professions.

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A new book from esteemed publisher Taschen lets you do just that without ever getting on a plane. “The Complete Gaudí” celebrates the architect’s greatest achievements through brand new photography, plans, and drawings by Gaudí himself. You won’t just find obvious inclusions like the Sagrada Familia chapel here, either. The book also highlights his furniture, decor, and unfinished projects.

Taschen describes the 368-page book as a “personal tour through Barcelona” to discover Gaudí’s singular vision.

“The life of Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) was full of complexity and contradictions. As a young man he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was critical of the church; toward the end of his life he devoted himself completely to the construction of one single spectacular church, La Sagrada Familia. In his youth, he courted a glamorous social life and the demeanor of a dandy. By the time of his death in a tram accident on the streets of Barcelona, his clothes were so shabby passersby assumed he was a beggar.”

“Gaudí’s incomparable architecture channels much of this multifaceted intricacy. From the shimmering textures and skeletal forms of Casa Batlló to the Hispano-Arabic matrix of Casa Vicens, his work merged the influences of Orientalism, natural forms, new materials, and religious faith into a unique Modernista aesthetic. Today, his unique aesthetic enjoys global popularity and acclaim. His magnum opus, the Sagrada Familia, is the most-visited monument in Spain, and seven of his works are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.”

Even those who aren’t familiar with Gaudí’s work can pick out more of his buildings once they’ve seen just one or two. His unmistakeable style puts his own personal spin on Art Nouveau, adding elements of Catalan cultural traditions like mosaic tiles. His seven major buildings in Barcelona include Parque Güell, Palacio Güell, Caca Vicens, Casa Mila, Casa Batlló, the Nativity facade and crypt of La Sagrada Familia, and the crypt in Colonia Güell.

When you look closely at his work, you’ll discover just how much thought, symbolism, and attention went into each and every element. Many of his facades feature fantastically ornate carvings, bright mosaics, 3D features, and all sorts of creatures, both real and imaginary: doves, pelicans, turtles, chickens, snails, chameleons, dogs, snakes, and dragons.

In our era, embellishment and artistry tends to be cast aside in favor of minimalism and budget-friendly simplicity. Isn’t it nice to imagine a resurgence in this kind of creativity in architecture, and how much character it could add to our cities?

“The Complete Gaudí: Freedom of Form with the ‘Dante of Architecture’” retails for $60 via Taschen Books and other retailers.

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An x-shaped concrete house with a rooftop pavilion hangs over the edge of a hillside in Barcelona, Spain, maximizing natural daylighting on the interior as well as the view. Designed by architects Cadaval & Sola-Morales, X House is a two-story home with four glassed-in triangular recesses that create its distinctive shape.

The front recess lengthens the area of glass on the front of the house, giving each side a distinct view of the city, the sea and the mountains. Another cutout avoids a tree. Situating the windows like this makes the home feel more secluded from the inside, preventing views of neighboring houses.

The hillside location also disguises the home from the street, with a garage on the top level and a recessed entrance. The flat roof creates a recreation area with views that just can’t be replicated with a more conventional design.

Inside, the top floor plays host to the owners’ suite, while common areas are double-height, giving them an expansive feeling. Below, in the sloping yard, is a trapezoidal swimming pool that can be seen from the front windows.

More from the architects

“The X House project aims to solve by the definition of a system, language, or even through a unique form, a number of inquiries that rise up when we read the specific given site: how to protect and give protagonism to an impressive pine, that is located on the top of the site, and that makes access and approximation to the house extremely complex from the street; how to avoid deciding between the views to the sea and those to the mountains, and allow both visions in opposite directions; how to neutralize through form the presence of the contiguous constructions, to build up a fake isolation that denies the neighbours; how to double the main views, permitting quality frontal views from the front and the rear of the house; how to resolve so many a priories with a simple movement that answers to all of the previous aims without prioritizing nor explicitly formulating a response to any of them.”

“The form, a unique form, is the result of a long process of search of individual answers to each of those challenges; thus, the form is not an a priori, but an effort to give a unitary response that satisfies each of the questions rose up in the design process.”

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