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]
^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. ISBN84-393-5437-1.
