Description
By commissioning this new building for its headquarters, the Spanish energy supplier and distributor Gas Natural signalled its intention to concentrate its various multinational activities in the Barcelona area and in so doing, to return after 160 years to its original site north of the old fishing quarter, Barcelonetta. The project is part of Barcelona’s urban renewal program, accelerated since the Olympic Games, and the accompanying renewal of the link between urban Barcelona and the sea.
The site is a collage of different building masses, a sort of nexus of energy and culmination point that takes the characteristics of its context and puts them on display. It is located at the interface between the rigid grid of Barcelonetta, the railway yards and a park on the site of the old gasworks. The individual built volumes are stacked one on top of the other, each one turned counter clockwise to the one below it as the building rises. The flat building mass lies parallel to the park; the middle volume, twenty metres above the street, forms an overhanging four-storey corbel arm and at the same time, a gate to the Barcelonetta quarter; in contrast, the ‘tower’ stands directly at the curve of the railway track, thus reacting to the station further away.
A variety of spatial situations has been provided for office use. They range from large open working areas for assembly line work (“The Principles of Project Selection”), through smaller work areas for group work to cell-like offices and combinations of the two. The tower is the hub both organisationally and formally, and it is in its first two storeys that the spacious entrance area is located. The vertical organisation mirrors the hierarchical corporate structure; the open work areas are situated on the lower floors, whilst the higher one ascends in the tower, the more exclusive become the private office combinations. The façade is planned as a multi-layered translucent ‘veil’ that takes on climate-technical functions like solar protection and ventilation, but also increases the abstract, sculptural effect through its undifferentiated treatment of the individual built volumes. Clear, unambiguous links to the surroundings are created through a few large window openings.
The Miralles and Tagliabue office combines the function of an office building with an effective urban planning message. Through differentiating the built volume according to its surroundings, they are successful in integrating massive quantities of office space in the structure of the city.
Drawings
Site plan with elevation
Urban context relations
Ground floor
Third floor
Typical tower floor and top floor
Photos
North elevation: the old gasometer in the park is a reminder of the place where today’s multinational corporation had its origins
West elevation of the headquarters of Gas Natural from over the railway tracks: Enric Miralles ascribed the same significance to his photo collages as he does to his buildings.
Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.