Spainish Architecture Faces Slump

The hard hitting recession we have been experiencing all around the world seems to have inevitably crept into Spain, ending the country's long-running love affair with cutting-edge architecture. This has turned the boom of high-profile projects from the world's greatest architects into a countrywide building bust.

Last week builders walked away from one of the country's most glamorous architect-driven developments, the Richard Rogers transformation of Barcelona's Las Arenas bullring. With bills unpaid and developers unsure what to do with the 19th century bullring, Lord Rogers' project turning it into a leisure and shopping center faces an uncertain future.

In Barcelona, a number of other high profile projects are also grinding to a halt. Some of which are Norman Foster's colourful, £230m remodelling of Europe's biggest football stadium, the Camp Nou of Barcelona football club and work by Frank Gehry on a 34-story office block and a development of 10 tower blocks by Jean Nouvel. Even Foster and Zaha's proposed New Campus of Justice (image above) in Madrid is experiencing a dramatic slow down in development.

"There is neither the financing nor the confidence to go on,'' said the local La Vanguardia newspaper as it mourned the future loss of Barcelona's reputation as a contemporary architecture showcase.

Many architects have have admitted to sources that not unlike Dubai, the writing is on the wall that boom days of Spanish architecture are over but have expressed hope that the country will recover a taste for signature buildings when the recession ends.




Image obtained from www.guardian.co.uk
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Madrid Solar Convention Center

Very few people know that due to decent weather and heavy public investment, Spain has quietly become a giant in solar energy, which has led to Madrid's building investment to create an icon that will represent the far reaching achievements in solar technology.

This symbol, designed by Mansilla+Tunon is a new convention center whose facade will be made entirely of solar panels. Just under 330 feet tall, it is to have over six stories of convention spaces, totalling over 1 million square feet with its largest auditorium seating 5,000.

The building gets its concept from a "solar lens" (now dubbed the "Death Star" by some critics, who must be star wars buffs) and is to be located with the business district of the city and will be surrounded by new office towers. It has been called "an advertisement for the country's accomplishments in cutting edge solar technology", which may soon become Spain's signature export as countries like the US scramble to catch up with the green revolution."


Image obtained from: www.fastcompany.com