Music in the Parks of Barcelona

Last wednesday, 2nd June, started the inaugural concert in the latest “Music in the Parks” cycle, organised by the Barcelona City Council Environment Area, with a performance by the Sant Andreu Jazz Band - the youngest big band in Europe - in the Teatre Grec Gardens.

The concert has opened new “Music in the Parks” programme. Now a traditional event, this year it aims to reach more people by raising the number of city parks holding the concerts to eight, doubling last year’s total.

It includes three parallel programmes, classical music, jazz and sessions by the Banda Municipal de Música of Barcelona, and these run from 2 June until 25 August.

There are 28 concerts in this year’s cycle. The Municipal Band’s concerts will take place in the Creueta del Coll, Diagonal Mar, Barceloneta and Guineueta parks. Turó Parc, the Príncep de Girona Gardens and the Hivernacle (Winter Garden) in Parc de la Ciutadella will hold the classical music concerts, while the Drets Humans (Human Rights) Gardens and the Hivernacle will hold the jazz sessions. The Municipal Band concerts start at 8 pm and the classical music and jazz concerts begin at 10 pm. All concerts are free and in the open air and you don’t need to book in advance.

The summer park concert programme came about fifteen years ago. The aim is top bring quality music to every kind of audience and to encourage performers by young musicians, while promoting the possibilities offered by parks as meeting places and recreational areas on summer nights and evenings.

Sponsored by DAMM Free, the event is being collaborated on by Cespa, UME Unión Musical, El Periódico, Time Out, Aigües Veri, the Conservatori del Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC).

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

New Architecture Tour in Barcelona

Our guide was Wendy, a very kind Dutch woman who has been living in Barcelona for years and she was perfectly fluent in Catalan and Spanish, although the tour is in English so everyone can follow her explanations.

We started at 3.30pm at Plaza Catalunya, and went down by Via Laietana on a modern, fast, aircon coach towards Santa Caterina Market, one example of how past and future converge in Barcelona’s architecture. The building that used to be a convent on middle ages is nowadays a top-design building with a sinuous colored roof reminiscent of Gaudí style. Market stands inside offer wide range of fruits, meats and fish on a fresh, light and welcoming atmosphere designed by Catalan architect Enric Miralles.

We continued our tour to the sea, the new façade of the city, were we could visit the Hospital del Mar entrance, an indoors-outdoors space much distant from the claustrophobic traditional waiting area of the medical facilities from the past. From there, we had a wonderful view of the coastal line of Barcelona and its many landmarks, such as the Sail Building, the two twin towers with Frank Gehry’s fish and the Forum resort, our next stop.

Next to the Forum, a new residential area occupies what used to be the industrial grounds of Barcelona. A beautiful transformation that changed old warehouses and factories into crystal skyscrapers and parks, thanks to the creativeness of Enric Miralles.

The tour, after having followed the sea line, returns to the city center by Diagonal avenue, to Glories. There we visited two works by Jean Nouvel: the famous Agbar tower and the Poblenou Park. Although we have seen the Agbar tower many times, it is always impressing and amazing, as its figures are: 4400 windows and 4500 LEDs that can generate 16million colors to the façade.

Our last stop was an original work by Ricard Bofill, who has also signed the new Terminal 1 at Barcelona Airport. The National Theater is a tribute to the Classical temples, with its columns and the reminiscent of the Greek tradition. For those who know the old Barcelona Airport, the conceptual connection is clear both on the columns and on the use of glass.

At the end of the tour, we had the feeling of having discovered a new city, and realized that Barcelona is still growing and changing, as it has always been since its foundation by the Roman more than 2000 years ago.

Barcelona Guide Bureau is a tour operator founded in 1990 by a group of local expert guides. BGB specializes in guided tours in and around Barcelona and we are known for our quality service and reliability. All guides are local licensed experts and are friendly, interesting and considerate people who will make sure you have the best possible tour. BGB also has an interesting blog about Barcelona history and highlights. Núñez i Navarro Hotels can assist you in booking tours to explore Barcelona. Ask for more information when making your hotel reservation, or at Front Desk once you are checked in.

NN Hotels contributed to the new Barcelona architecture with B-Hotel in Plaza Espanya and Soho Hotel in Gran Via; both selected on the Barcelona Design Tour.