When it comes to glimming a city, it is often preferable to do it from above, and that is the possibility that the last floor of the Glòries tower, ancient Agbar tower, the phallus -shaped building that dominates the Skyline of Barcelona dominates.
Without good until today, only the office buildings of the Municipal Aguas Company (Aguas Barcelona) were there and it was not possible to make visits, now, a private company has installed a viewpoint there and expanded the visit to make it an experience with an exhibition in the basement.
Before being able to reach the top, you first have to go down to the basement. There, four different facilities wait for the curious visitors. Presented in several languages, in multimedia and interactive form, there are images, sounds and information about Barcelona: water temperature, CO2 emissions, traffic movements, sent tweets and trees population.
In contrast to the wealth of data and information about the atmosphere or winds, another part of the exhibition is quiet and pleasantly traditional: in more than 100 small glass showcases you can see the creatures of the city as an art of folding of Origami. Joan Sallas has used white role to recreate the life of “Habitat Barcelona” in a creative and silent way. In addition to spiders and insects, he even thought about lice. Although they are certainly not always “beauties”, these white creatures have an almost soothing effect.
Then we climb the observation platform. An elevator with transparent crystal ceiling allows to see the ascending route 125 meters long, in order to observe the rapid rise to vertiginous heights. A little like in the subway tunnel, except that here we move horizontally instead of vertically.
Glory
Designed by Jean Nouvel in 1999 and built between 2001 and 2005, the Glòries tower has 35 plants and reaches a height of 144.44 meters. Together with Jean Nouvel, Fermín Vázquez (from B720 Architects) was one of the responsible architects.
The unusual form aims to take over the imposing building and make it look more dynamic. Unlike the mostly rectangular skyscrapers and the pointed towers that often break the horizontal planes of the cities in an almost aggressive way, the rounded upper part of the Glòries tower intended to be powerful, but not hard or angular. Rather as a geyser emerging from the earth. A form that arises from the landscape instead of crossing it. It is said that the architects were inspired, among other things, in the landscape around Barcelona, the rocky spikes of Montserrat and the towers of the Sagrada Familia.
The structure is formed by two concrete cylinders, one inner frame and another exterior (the YouTube video “Torre Agbar: the tower that touches the sky” explains in detail the technical structure). A special characteristic of the building is the outer skin of the facade. The colors that change with the incidence of the light, causing the tower to shine in red earth tones and blue nuances during the day, are created by an intelligent construction of glass slats and painted aluminum panels that cover the concrete facade. Depending on the time of day and the inclination of the lames, very different light reflexes are created. On special occasions, the facade, already colorful, even lights up with images of colored lights.
Cloud Barcelona cities
Once on the upper floor, a spectacular 360º view awaits curious visitors. Walking in a circle, you can admire the complete panorama of Barcelona, with Montjuïc, the Tibidabo, the Sacred Family and the big ships in the sea. The view is really fantastic.
Up there is another facility of the viewpoint: Cloud Cities Barcelona of Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno. A construction that at first glance reminds me of a mixture between a brilliant web and the atomium (that of Brussels). And the work of art can go walking! To be more precise, it is scalable, because it is necessary to be a bit athletic to find the way through this city of clouds.
For the artist, the installation is an invitation, an offer to connect different perspectives and paths. It wants to allow people to experience things individually and at the same time they are together at different levels. Anyone that moves through this structure, which is suspended at a height of four to ten meters, will experience its own unique view of the city from the different platforms, which can be understood as small personal spaces.
Numbers, data and information
The Glòries tower rises in one of the most important communication knots in the city and dominates the Glòries area, which in recent years has been reverge. This new viewpoint is located in the center of the New and Modern Barcelona, since the old Industrial District of Poblenou houses Start-UPS and university campuses, in addition to some interesting museums. Just next to the Glòries tower is the “Disseny Hub” design museum, which brings together several museums that were previously distributed by different districts of the city. Not far away is the Museu Framis and if you want to walk a little more you will get to Espai Suberachs.
(Glòries tower and the right is seen the design museum)
Glòries Tower Viewpoint
Address: Avinguda Diagonal, 211
08018 Barcelona
Web www.miradortorreglories.com
Contrary to the expected, the entrance is not in the tower itself, but in a window located at the foot of the tower, which is marked as “Mirador Glòries.” If you have not yet reserved your online tickets, you can buy them on the ground floor.
Input price: 15 euros (without going up to Cloud Cities Barcelona ), With access to works of art: 25 euros.
In other words, when the Glòries tower was over, it was the third tallest building in the city. So far, the Arts and the Mapfre tower are only raised above the tower. But as the construction works of the Sagrada Familia advance, the towers of the famous church will soon be higher from the point of observation.
Total height: 144.44 meters
Last floor: 128.30 meters
Total floors: 35
- By the way: Norman Foster ordered the building in London The Gherkin (30 ST Mary Ax) at the same time as the Glòries tower.
This article was reproduced with authorization from the author.
The author loves to travel, and it is not always necessary to go very far, because even in central Europe there are still small unknown places, exciting landscapes and exciting stories that expect to be discovered. After finishing his studies, Nicole Biarnés moved to Spain, where he has resided near Barcelona for 23 years. As an independent writer, she writes travel books, writes texts for several websites, conducts in situ research for television productions and reports life in the Mediterranean in her travel blogwww.freibeuter-reisen.org
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