★★★★★ 5.0
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CaixaForum Barcelona
Workers are still laying new bricks in these walls... well, they did 100,000 of them back in 2002! This awesome red castle was actually a cotton factory that only worked for 8 years - that's like starting school and quitting before high school! Built in 1911 by architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, it won Barcelona's coolest building prize the same year. Now you'll descend underground like entering a secret base - Japanese architect Arata Isozaki buried the entrance beneath street level, protected by a giant iron tree sculpture called "Tetsuju." Pretty wild transformation from making blankets to making art, right?
Did You Know?
- CaixaForum Barcelona is housed in the Casaramona factory, a masterpiece of Catalan Modernisme designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch—one of the movement’s leading architects alongside Gaudí and Domènech i Montaner—and completed in 1911. The building was so innovative that it won the City Council’s award for best industrial building in its opening year, praised for combining striking aesthetics with advanced fire prevention and worker safety features, rare for factories of that era.
- While the original Modernista factory is a historic gem, the center’s striking contemporary entrance and lobby were designed by Japanese Pritzker Prize–winning architect Arata Isozaki in 2002. Isozaki’s addition—a sleek, underground glass-and-marble space—creates a fascinating architectural dialogue with Puig i Cadafalch’s ornate brickwork, symbolizing the fusion of old and new that defines CaixaForum today.
- CaixaForum is not just an art museum: it offers immersive, family-friendly experiences like Symphony, a virtual reality journey where visitors ‘join’ the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and the Ravel’s Bolero experience, which lets you feel like a member of the Orquestra Simfònica del Gran Teatre del Liceu. These high-tech, interactive installations make classical music accessible and engaging for all ages.