The Massana School of Art and Design (11,000 sq. metres), in Barcelona, can be found a stone’s throw from Las Ramblas, on the other side of the famous La Boqueria market. The demonstrative architecture of the school designed by Carme Pinós met the need for the outpost of an institution to assert itself.

After previously occupying the prestigious Art Nouveau premises in the Santa Creu hospital, there was a need to signal this new address in the urban landscape of Barcelona’s old town, revealed by a few jutting volumes dressed in ceramic. Just opposite, the old 19th century covered market, cluttered with goods and alive with the comings and goings of regular customers, was enlarged in 2015. Its architecture, in its struggle to exist, seems, here again, particularly expressive… Its designer? Carme Pinós! There, in the heart of Barcelona, the combat is not only architectural, but personal too.

Read this article of Jean-Phillipe Hugron in the issue n°424 of L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui.