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Location: Show on map
Plaça de Llevant
Avinguda Diagonal
Barcelona
08193
Spain
coordinates: 41.4111214 2.2209978

Building names(s): Forum Barcelona / Edificio Forum

Architect/Designer: Herzog & de Meuron

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Last update: 17 July, 2009 | Suggested By kiwi kid

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1. on 24 Mar 2009 architecture Revived

   The location on Avinguda Diagonal connects the historic city with the other various parts of the city, and with the Mediterranean coastline. The programs fit two-dimensionally inside the triangle. Each exterior side runs 180m and is 25m tall. The front corner cantilevers over the public square, creating a inside/outside relationship.

   Besides construction cost concerns, there were construction flaws when it opened in 2004 and the building has been difficult to maintain.

2. on 24 Mar 2009 Medit

   Sold to the public as the architectural jewel of the new Fòrum area, H&dM’s only work in Barcelona is basically an enormous -but rather boring-, blue equilateral triangle -180 m each side, 25 m tall- raised on 17 pillars with an inclined public square underneath. Its main function is to house an auditorium (3,200) for congresses that stretches from under the square up to the suspended triangle -see section above-, where a huge open area -pierced by various polygonal skylights- gives space to different temporary and permanent exhibitions. Though the building it’s impressive by its scale even from far away, the textured, kind of volcanic, blue concrete skin works better in the short distance -unlike the Agbar Tower-, while the too-schematic, mirroring, vertical window-holes help to dematerialize the huge triangle a bit. In the initial design the building had a flooded roof, with a thin layer of water on top cascading down to the square from the skylights, to cool the building in the summer, however due to some construction problems now the roof is empty and looks more like a dried swamp. Some call it, metaphorically or not, an exercise of “architectural humour” but I find the project to be quite dull and simplistic in most aspects -especially the excessively abstract triangular shape being justified by the continuity of the Diagonal Avenue and Rambla Prim main axes-, even if some parts of the building are plastically attractive enough. Probably not the best project in Herzog & De Meuron’s marvelous and brilliant career, definitely not the best building in Barcelona… and still a must-see.