Don’t shoot the pianist

The Maria Canals International Music Competition of Barcelona was founded in 1954 by the pianist Maria Canals and her husband, the writer Rossend Llates. This Competition has achieved international prestige since it was accepted by the World Federation of International Music Competitions in 1958.

It is held at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, being endorsed by the World Federation of Music Competitions for the organization of the branches of piano, violin, singing, cello, chamber music, guitar, percussion and flute. Since 1954, the Competition has held over 110 branches, with over 7.000 participants from 100 countries and 180 jury members from all over the world.

The 56th Barcelona Maria Canals International Music Competition will bring together 91 pianists from 26 countries between 13 and 26 March. At the same time, the Off-Competition will be taking piano music to the public.

Maria Canals Competition wants to take advantage of the presence of so many prestigious pianists in the city to take piano music out to the public. More than fifty pianos will be spread around the city so everyone who wants to can play the piano in some very unusual places.

Green spaces, squares and streets will provide the setting for concerts aimed at everyone, children and adults, professionals and amateurs, with grand pianos installed so the participants in the competition can take their art to every corner of the city. Rambla del Raval, Plaça de Sarrià, Can Brians prison and the Line 2 metro station lobby in Plaça de la Universitat are some of the improvised “concert halls” for these young artists.

European University visits NNHotels

European University has started a series of visits to 2 of our hotels: B-Hotel and Hotel Soho Barcelona, as part of the programm Industrial Visits for the Bachelor in Business Administration students. The first visit was a valuable experience for the students, and many of them have actually shown interest in conducting their interships in one of Núñez i Navarro Hotels.

European University is an accredited international business school in Barcelona, that offers innovative business programs at undergraduate / Bachelor and graduate / MBA levels. With small, dynamic classes offered in English, students at European University Barcelona can take advantage of the international environment while getting the best of both North American and European academic curricula.

Both B-Hotel in Plaza Espanya and Hotel Soho next to Plaza Universitat are design hotels where architecture and decoration have an important role on their character and essence. From their terraces, guests can combine incredible panorama views of Barcelona with relaxing swimming pools and lounge areas.

Students at B-Hotel

Students at Hotel Soho Barcelona

All Barcelona Museums with one single ticket

Imagine a city where you can see one of the most impressive Romanesque art collections and historical paintings that describe the Mediterranean countries during Middle Ages,  and then, just walking ten minutes you are on a modern building featuring an exceptionally comprehensive collection of works by Joan Miró. But don’t stop there. Continue dreaming about a gothic palace where nobles and knights have been replaced by Pablo Picasso works, a city where buildings seem a quarry or even a dragon…

 Now open your eyes. Welcome to Barcelona !!!

U232 Hotel invites you to discover it on an Art Weekend package, which includes:

• 2 nights stay at our U232 Hotel in Barcelona (on a single, double, triple or family room)
• Breakfast in the exclusive U232 buffet restaurant
• Welcome drink in the U232 bar (1 per person)
• 1 Art Ticket per person that entitle you to visit:
  • Museu Picasso: Picasso lived key years in Barcelona – those of his apprenticeship as an artist. He established and maintained strong links to the city throughout his life and it was here where he wanted his museum to be.
  • Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya: MNAC has the best known display of Romanesque frescoes in the whole of Europe, unique both for the quantity and for the quality of the works on show.
  • Fundació Joan Miró: The Foundation holds an exceptionally comprehensive collection of works by Joan Miró.
  • Centre Cultural Caixa Catalunya  - La Pedrera by Antoni Gaudí: Visit the most famous building bythe most famous architect in Barcelona.
  • Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona: One of the largests collections of Contemporary Art in Europe, in a building by Richard Meier.
  • Fundació Antoni Tàpies
  • Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

Book now your Art Weekend in Barcelona and discover all the museums of the city !!!

B-Hotel: Biggest rooms in Barcelona

Our B-Hotel has been awarded with the ”Biggest Rooms” distinction by venere.com users worldwide.

B-Hotel pays homage to the city of Barcelona, the modernity and design capital, through the giant letter B sculpture which sits atop the building, marking the city skyline.

The innovative and minimalist B-Hotel showcases a perfect balance of avant-garde style and cutting-edge technologies. The building features a blend of the latest architectural trends, and stands eight stories tall. It is home to 84 rooms and a private parking garage. It makes a great meeting place and has a beautiful and impressive lobby, where guests can enjoy drinks at the B-Bar or share some tapas and fine local wines in the B-Celler. Also offers a terrace with solarium, an incredible pool on the eighth floor, and some amazing views overlooking Plaza Espanya, Montjuïc and the Gran Via. It may be the only terrace in town with free Wi-Fi.

Venere.com is a trademark of Expedia, the largest online travel company in the world with presence in over 55 countries.

We draw a free stay again!!

Yesterday we raffled a free stay in the U232 Hotel in Barcelona between all our customers who posted their opinions on our blogs. The lucky winner is: Gabriel Zeller, who sent us their comments about their stay at Hotel Paral·lel. Congratulations!

To round things 2009 and begin even better 2010, we offer you a next contest Guest Reviews, for all those articles and comments we receive directly from our guests until February 28, 2010. In Núñez i Navarro Hotels want to know the opinion of our clients. Therefore, we invite you to post on our blog NN Experiences your comments and opinions about the hotel where you stayed.

The prize this time will be a free stay in the modern B-Hotel located at the Plaza Espanya. A hotel that surprises for its originality and architecture, and its pool with a view to Montjuïc.

The prize consists of:

• A two nights stay in a B-Room with Breakfast included.
• Welcome Cocktail at the B-Bar.
• To be used between: September 7th 2009 and November 23rd 2009 (subject to availability).
• No changes can be made once the reservation has been confirmed.
• The prize can not be used in conjunction with other item or goods.
• The prize can not be exchanged for any other item or goods.
• The prize is personal and non-transferable.

Only people who have already stayed in one of our nine hotels and post a review on the blog are eligible for the prize. Winners will be advised via e-mail and their name and surname will be published on the blog.
 
If you have any queries, please send a message to the following address: newsletter@nnhotels.com

The Tibidabo Hall of Mirrors wins FAD awards

After its remodelling in July 2008, the Tibidabo Hall of Mirrors was awarded both the jury prize and the public-opinion prize that are presented by the FAD every year.

The jury awarded the attraction their prize, under the category of “momentary interventions”, at the 51st appearance of the prize-giving ceremony.The prize was awarded to “highlight the magic, imagination and mastery of optical illusions enjoyed by the attraction, which was designed to make children laugh and think“, the jury remarked on its decision.

The attraction was designed by Dani Freixes and works using modern technology in conjunction with the park’s classic mirrors.

The Hall of Mirrors takes its visitors on a ten-point journey, featuring periscopes, stereoscopes, wall mirrors, floor mirrors and lasers.

Source: www.bcn.es

Cool hotel & very convenient location: B-Hotel

We stayed at the B-Hotel from 1 to 5 August.

Cool hotel from the pool on the roof to the Breakfast room on the 1st floor with fantastic views over Plaza Espanya.
The rooms are really well laid out, the decor is funky in a minimalist way, the breakfast was excellent and the location is very convenient - close to the city centre, transport connections and to Montjuic.
Staff were friendly and helpful. Already, we are recommending it to friends as the place to stay in the best city in Europe.

Experience posted by Phoebe Muckian, Sept 09.

Three Dragons Castle

The Natural Science Museum is hosting the exhibition “The Castle of Three Dragons, from restaurant to Natural Science Museum” which takes a look back over the history and architecture of the building designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner for the 1888 Universal Exhibition. Domènech i Montaner is world-wide known for his later buildings Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, both of them on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list.

This great building of unpainted brick, crowned with embattlements, known to most as the Three Dragons Castle, is an example of early Barcelona modernism. The building is was built by Domènech i Montaner in 1887. Since 1920 it has housed the Zoology Museum. It preceded the famous Amsterdam Stock Exchange by Berlage (1898) in its use of construction materials: exposed brick and undisguised iron structures. The building is also important for the history of art, because it is the site of the workshops where in the 19th century old artisan techniques in ceramics and iron-working were studied for the first time. This activity led to a resurgence in the decorative arts in Catalonia.

More inf@: Natural Science Museum website

Line 9 will stop at Camp Nou

 Barcelona is building the new L9 in the metro network. It will be the longest metro line of Europe, with a total of 46.6 km and will transport about 90 million passengers per year.

One of its 52 stops will be next to the FC Barcelona Stadium. Nowadays, locals and tourist who want to visit the FCB Museum or attend a football match in Camp Nou, have to use the stops Collblanc L5 or Les Corts L3 and walk some minutes.

The new L9 will be inaugurated partially this year and will be fully functional in year 2012. Thirty of the 52 stations will follow the same pattern, a cylindrical well with a superior hall connected to the street and a underground hall connected to the platforms. Trains circulate in two different levels. Where it is not possible to excavate deep, the metro stops will adopt the conventional design or will be above surface on a viaduct.

New Landmark in Barcelona: Zaha Hadid Spiralling Tower

The 11-storey building, with its irregularly aligned floors, sea views and large open roof and terrace spaces, will be completed within 18 months, according to Barcelona’s mayor, Jordi Hereu.

The Spiralling Tower will add to Barcelona’s ever-increasing stock of buildings by major architects, with a triangular pavilion by fellow Pritzker winners Jacques Herzog and Pierre De Meuron a close neighbour, and residential buildings and parks by Enric Miralles and Jean Nouvel.
The spiral-shaped tower looks like a dynamic stack of books, each representing one floor out of a total of 11 floors or 48 metres. The floors are offset, permitting a generous sprinkling of terraces, gardens and outdoor spaces.The campus will contain an auditorium, shopping malls, teaching facilities and a series of public spaces on the ground floor.
The building will be almost entirely covered with glass to provide sea views and capture daylight: “I designed the tower to provide the best possible view from every room in the building”, says Zaha Hadid.

Zaha Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Winner of many international competitions, theoretically influential and groundbreaking, a number of Hadid’s winning designs were initially never built: notably, The Peak Club in Hong Kong (1983) and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales (1994). In 2002 Hadid won the international design competition to design Singapore’s one-north masterplan. In 2005, her design won the competition for the new city casino of Basel, Switzerland. In 2004 Hadid became the first female recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Previously, she had been awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to architecture. She is a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica. In 2006, Hadid was honored with a retrospective spanning her entire work at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In that year she also received an Honorary Degree from the American University of Beirut.

More inf@:  Zaha Hadid Official Webisite   .::.   Wikipedia  .::.  Archdaily

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