Torre de Gas Building, Barcelona : Architecture

Natural Gas Company Tower / Torre de Gas Natural La Barceloneta, Barcelona 2007 Enric Miralles / Benedetta Tagliabue EMBT Photographer: Romain Piro Gas Natural's New Headquarters, Barcelona, Spain As a living creature that reacts to external impulses, the new building of the company Gas Natural, develops and extends addressing the different conditions of the program and the complex environment. The aim is to reconcile several objectives: to create an urban landmark in the skyline of Barcelona, to set up a dialogue with the low-rise houses of the neighbourhood and to generate quality public spaces. The constructible volume, the singular character of this new building, its relationship with the urban periphery makes the new office building of Gas Natural a member of the family of contemporary buildings, which have started to appear on the skyline of the city. However this doesn’t mean the new building lacks a clear desire to become compatible with it urban surroundings; the small scale of the district of la Barceloneta, the surrounding houses and the park. It has the verticality of an office tower, while at the same time offers an entrance that shows the representative character of the building from a rapid view of the interior. That is why we have made a proposal where the interest lies in the fragmentation of the constructible volume into a series of constructions that at the end form a unified volume, which responds to different scales and in clear relation to the nearby apartment buildings. By forming a great doorway which allows the opening up of the district of La Barceloneta and a singular public space that brings the construction to the ground, until it forms an urban landscape of different dimensions… The treatment of the facades follows similar criteria… A series of large windows create interest close up, while an indifferent volumetric treatment protects the building from the sun and the noise and shows a series of abstract volumes that confuse with the other buildings along the periphery. NEW HEADQUARTERS OF GAS NATURAL Barcelona, October 1999 - 2007 Architects Enric Miralles & Benedetta Tagliabue Miralles Tagliabue - EMBT Client: TORREMARENOSTRUM S.L: GAS NATURAL SDG S.A. COMPETITION Project Team Elena Rocchi Collaborators Xavier Rodriguez, Tomoko Sakamoto, Javier Garcia German, Daniel Roselló, Marc de Rooij, Umberto Viotto, Torsten Skoetz, Sania Belli, Josep Mias, Marta Cases, Ezequiel Cattaneo Model Fabian Asunción, Leonardo Giovannozzi, Francesco Matucci, Rafael de Montard, Sonia Henriques, Jan Löcke, Cristiane Stauss, Barbara oelbrandt, Mette Olsen, Jad Salhab, Akira Kita, Annie Marcela Henao. INITIAL DESIGN PHASE Project Director: Elena Rocchi, Lluís Cantallops Project team: Roberto Sforza, Andrea Landell de Moura, Lluis Corbella Collaborators: Leonardo Giovannozzi, Fabrizio Massoni, Umberto Viotto, Mònica Batalla Model Fabian Asunción, Rafael de Montard. DETAILED DESIGN PHASE Project Director: Josep Ustrell Project Team: Elena Rocchi, Andrea Salies Landell de Moura, Lluis Corbella, Roberto Sforza, Montse Galindo, Marco Dario Chirdel, Eugenio Cirulli, Adriana Ciocoletto, Liliana Sousa Collaborators: Miguel del Olmo, Elena Nedelcu, Nagy Péter Sándor, Christian Kreifelts, Davin Robinson, Celine Carbes, Paulo Carneiro, , Bernardo Figueirinhas, Katrin Wittman, Fabio Sgroi, Alexandra Spiegel, Federica Gozzi, Ludwig Godefroy, Laura Valentini, Massimo Chizzola, Santiago Crespi, Adelaida Passeti. Model: Christian Molina, Stefan Geenen, Maria Pierres, Felipe Bernal, Abelardo Gómez, Daniel Erfeld, Jordi Rollan, Miguel Sánchez, Ana Stoppani, Dirk Mayer, Nuno Rodríguez, Gabriele Rotelli, Rocco Tenca Structure: Julio Martinez Calzón, MC2 Estudio de Ingenieria, Madrid Services: PGI Grup Quantity Surveyor: CIC. M.Roig i Assoc. S.L. photos © adrian welch Torre de Gas Natural Barcelona - architects: Enric Miralles Benedetta Tagliabue