CaixaForum Barcelona

41°22′16.79″N 2°8′59.1″E

CaixaForum Barcelona

Established	February 2002 (2002-02)
Location	Av. de Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 6-8 08038 Barcelona
Type	Cultural center
Visitors	782,529 (2011)[1]
Owner	Fundación ”la Caixa”
Public transit access	Plaça d'Espanya
Website	caixaforum.org/es/barcelona

CaixaForum Barcelona is a cultural center in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Located in the Montjuïc area in a former Modernist textile factory designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, it is owned by the not-for-profit banking foundation "la Caixa".^[2] After a restoration of the building, the art center opened its doors in 2002 and since then it hosts temporary art exhibitions and cultural events.^[3]

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.^[2] Called the "Casaramona factory", it was completed in 1911, and the same year won the City Council's award for best industrial building.^[2] 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 "la Caixa" banking foundation bought it in 1963.^[2] It was opened as a cultural center in February 2002.^[3] The building was restored prior to its opening,^[4] 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.^[2]

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.^[5]

Gallery

• 
  Main entrance, designed by Arata Isozaki
• 
  Interior courtyard, showing distinctive window shapes and brickwork
• 
  A model of the building

See also

• CosmoCaixa Barcelona
• CaixaForum Madrid
• CaixaForum Lleida

References

1. "El CaixaForum rep 782.529 visitants". Diari de Girona (in Catalan). Barcelona. 4 January 2012. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
2. "The Building". CaixaForum Barcelona. "la Caixa". Retrieved 26 February 2012.
3. "Caixaforum: Pleasant, interesting and free of charge!". Barcelona tour guides. Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
4. Flanagan, Julie (2001). Museus i Centres de Patrimoni Cultural a Catalunya (in Catalan) (1st ed.). Barcelona: Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya. p. 19. ISBN 84-393-5437-1.
5. Emma Daly (September 15, 2002), Glorious Recycling: Barcelona; Art in an old mill and Gaudí by bus The New York Times.