One of my favourite walking routes in Barcelona is around the historic Port Vell harbour from the Christopher Columbus monument to the Barceloneta beach. Along the way you can enjoy views of the harbour filled with yachts and historic tall ships, take a look at the classic architecture and admire the diverse collection of contemporary sculptures …
The El Tauró del Carmel shark mural was painted in 2009 by Italian artist Blu as part of the Influencers street art festival. The 25m long green shark is made up of 100€ notes and represents the insatiable appetite of capitalism which is set to consume us all (Spain’s financial crisis started in 2008). Although now …
In preparation for the Olympic Games of 1992, Barcelona’s seafront and port were transformed from a largely neglected industrial area into one of the most attractive waterfronts in Europe. The whole area was given a facelift and a new marina was built as well as apartment buildings to house the athletes. The old railway tracks …
Spanish artist Alfredo Lanz has 2 sculptures on display near Barcelona’s waterfront. The better known and largest of the two is Homage to swimming (Catalan: Homenatge a la Natació) which is located in Plaça del Mar square next to the Barceloneta and Sant Sebastià beaches. The Olympic disciplines of water polo, diving, crawl and synchronised …
If you arrived in Barcelona by ferry or cruise ship you will already be familiar with the Onades (waves) sculpture by Andreu Alfaro Hernández. Likewise, if you took a taxi from the airport to the city centre, depending on which area of the city you are staying in, there’s a good chance that you will have seen …
With it’s heady mix of culture, beaches, history, architecture and night-life Barcelona is one of Europe’s top tourist destinations. The tourist boom started in 1992 when the city hosted the Olympic Games and embraced the opportunity to promote and reinvent itself. Cobi – Barcelona’s 1992 Olympic Mascot No Olympic Games would be complete without an …
Panorama is a 28m high composite portrait which was painted on the facade of the Centre Civic de Sant Martí as part of the 2015 Open Walls Conference. Cuban born artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerda combined elements of 10 local women to create a portrait that represents the neighbourhood as a whole. The idea behind the composite portrait …
In a city replete with stunning modernista architecture designed by renowned architects such as Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner, it may come as a surprise to find that one of Barcelona’s most photographed buildings is an abandoned squat whose most notable feature is a huge street art mural. The building in question is …
Read moreLa Carbonería – From Urbanistic Innovation To Graffiti Covered Squat
Located in Plaça de Sant Miquel behind Barcelona’s City Hall, this unusual 26.5m high stainless steel tower by Antoni Llena i Font was unveiled in 2012 during the Feast of Santa Eulalia. The statue is titled Homenatge als Castellers and is a tribute to the emblematic human towers which are a traditional feature of public …
Marc is one of a pair of nearly identical statues by Robert Llimós portraying a colourful, genderless, neo-expressionist human figure holding a large picture frame which it is looking through. The sculpture was inaugurated in 1997 and it’s title is a play on words. Marc means frame in Catalan and the statue is dedicated to the artist’s …