CaixaForum Barcelona

The building

The building was originally commissioned as a textile factory by Casimir Casaramona i Puigcercós, and built by the famous Catalan Modernism architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Called the Casaramona factory, it was completed in 1911, and the same year won the City Council's award for best industrial building. The factory closed in 1919, but reopened as a warehouse for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.

In 1940, the building was used as a cavalry barracks for the Spanish Armed Police Corps, and it was used as such until the "la Caixa" banking foundation bought it in 1963. The building was restored prior to its opening, and a new entrance was built, designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, in a process that included firing 100,000 bricks to match the original ones.

The center has almost three acres of exhibition space, a media library, auditorium, classrooms and a restaurant. Visitors descend by escalator to the basement lobby, adorned by a Sol LeWitt mural, then rise again to the exhibition spaces on the ground floor, within the crenelated brickwork.

Gallery

File:CaixaForum Barcelona- entrance.JPG|Main entrance, designed by Arata Isozaki File:CaixaForum Barcelona- passadís interior.JPG|Interior courtyard, showing distinctive window shapes and brickwork File:CaixaForum Barcelona - maqueta.JPG|A model of the building

References

References

1. (4 January 2012). "El CaixaForum rep 782.529 visitants". [[Diari de Girona]].
2. "The Building". "la Caixa".
3. "Caixaforum: Pleasant, interesting and free of charge!". Barcelona tour guides.
4. Flanagan, Julie. (2001). "Museus i Centres de Patrimoni Cultural a Catalunya". Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya.
5. Emma Daly (September 15, 2002), [https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/travel/glorious-recycling-barcelona-art-in-an-old-mill-and-gaudi-by-bus.html Glorious Recycling: Barcelona; Art in an old mill and Gaudí by bus] ''[[The New York Times]]''.