Modern Architecture
It's easy to get sidetracked by the modernista architecture of the Eixample, and to forget that Barcelona sports plenty of modern wonders, too. Partly, they are a result of the impetus provided by the 1992 Olympics, which allowed innovations similar to those made in 1888 and 1929. But there's also an obsession in Barcelona with being "modern" - a feeling that the city has a lot of catching up to do after Franco. The main architects for the Olympic projects were an international bunch, including Japanese and Italian architects alongside the Catalan names. But the Catalan architects - among them Oriol Bohigas, Carlos Buxade, Joan Margarit, Ricardo Bofill and Federico Correa - have all been leaving their impression upon the Eixample for a number of years. You can see Bohigas's Habitatges Treballadors Metal·lurgics, for example, at c/Pallars 301-319; Correa's Atalaia de Barcelona at Avda Sarria 71; and Bofill's Bloc Residencial at c/Nicaragua 99. For the latest work by the Catalan architects, you have to check out the Olympic and new urbanist projects scattered around the city: Correa, Margarit and Buxade worked on the refit of the Estadi Olimpic; Bofill was in charge of the Sports University on Montjuic as well as the new Teatre Nacional at Placa de les Glories, and had a hand in the airport refit; Bohigas and others were responsible for creating the massive Parc de Mar development down at the harbour. But perhaps the most exciting contemporary buildings of Barcelona are the wonderful "rationalist" works of the late Jose Antonio Coderch, working from the 1950s through the 1970s, and producing such marvels as the dark curved glass Trade Towers at Gran Via de Carles III, 86-94. Less dramatic but still very pleasing are his blocks of Mediterranean-style apartments at c/Raset 21-31 and those adorned with adjustable blinds and screens at c/Johann Sebastian Bach 7
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