The FAD awards once again recognize improvement interventions in existing buildings. In the 68th edition, held this Wednesday night, the winners of the FAD Architecture Award are, ex aequo, the Recircular l'Eixample project, by Flexo Arquitectura and Addenda Architects, and Infinito Delicias, by Husos Arquitecturas and Elii [Oficina de Arquitectura]. Regarding Recircular l'Eixample, the jury recognizes the architects' ability to "programmatically and structurally reorganize" an important part of the built heritage of the Eixample block where the market, the library, and the Sagrada Família civic center are located. With the aim of strengthening citizen activity, the architects have generated new pedestrian passages and public spaces, and the jury also values the public initiative that makes it possible and the project's ability to go beyond the specific commission.

The Rambla de Barcelona under construction looks like an anthill during a peak of stress: workers, tourists, and Barcelonians struggle not to bump into anyone as they go up and down. The Principal Theatre is also undergoing a complete renovation, and these days the promoter, Josep Maria Trénor, has opened the construction site doors for the first time to a group of journalists. The theatre's facade is covered from top to bottom by a metal scaffolding. The iron protects it, but it's intimidating: the building is barely visible.

The archery facilities of the Barcelona Olympic Games, by Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós, are one of the most iconic works of Catalan architecture of recent decades. At the same time, it is also a paradigmatic case of the pending path for administrations to fully value contemporary architecture and, where appropriate, to patrimonialize it. Following the collapse that occurred in Carmel in 2005, the public company GISA demolished one of the two pavilions of the building in 2008, the competition one, during the works to build a new maneuvering tunnel for L5 of the metro, with the commitment to rebuild it. A commitment, until now, unfulfilled. But now the solution could come through the municipal route: the plenary session of the Barcelona City Council has just approved, with the abstention of the PSC and the rest of the favorable votes, a proposal by BComú to renovate the changing rooms and the bar of the football and rugby fields of La Teixonera and integrate the competition building of archery, whose pieces have been abandoned on a nearby plot for seventeen years. But as ARA has learned from sources familiar with the case, the municipal government has no intention of rebuilding the building.

Generational handover at Sala Parés. Jaume Sabater Martos, co-founder and CEO of Stoneweg, the driving force behind the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Barcelona, has acquired a majority stake in the gallery and joins as a strategic partner alongside the two branches of the Maragall family involved in the space. According to the statement released by the gallery, the agreement will allow Sala Parés, the oldest operating art gallery in Europe, to reach 2027 strengthened, the year in which it will celebrate its 150th anniversary.

The hat shop Mil (Fontanella, 20, in Barcelona) has become a hopeful exception among Barcelona's emblematic businesses. While in recent years real estate pressure has forced some owners to close, Núria Arnau, fourth generation of the business, reached an agreement with the building's owner company, Catalana d'Occident, for them to renew the lease and avoid moving. Arnau and her two sons, Sergi and Jordi Creus, were not confident since the COVID restrictions ended, and had started holding public activities in their workshop, but Occident not only renewed their contract at an affordable price, but also financed the renovation of the premises.

The judge of the court of first instance and Instruction number 2 of Huesca has dismissed the appeal of the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) against the order of last April 10 in which it set 56 weeks for the return of the mural paintings from the monastery of Sixena.

True to his essence until the end: just over a month ago, the British artist David Hockney, who died this Friday at the age of 88, received the actor Ian McKellen in his studio, as McKellen himself published on his Instagram. Although Hockney had been using a wheelchair for some years, and in the photo he looks quite thin, he maintained his style, with a suit with colored checks and his characteristic horn-rimmed glasses. Hockney dressed as he painted. Furthermore, seeing Hockney and McKellen together implies seeing reunited two of the most important figures in 20th-century British culture, and two unquenchable icons of the gay community, who began working when homosexuality was still a crime in the United Kingdom.

Miquel Barceló's exhibitions always generate a lot of anticipation. The one dedicated to him by the Artur Ramon Art gallery starting this Friday generates even more: Barceló is one of the three artists who a few months ago presented a project for the facade of the Glory of the Sagrada Familia, along with Cristina Iglesias and Javier Marín, and the exhibition will open its doors three days after the inauguration of the tower of Jesus by Leo XIV. It is his first exhibition of unpublished work in a Barcelona gallery since 1990. It may seem like a very calculated operation, but Barceló explained this Thursday that, simply, "the moment has come and it makes sense." "I don't really like having exhibitions in a gallery, I prefer painting. There's nothing strange about that," he added after patiently posing for photographers. Previously, gallerist Artur Ramon had asked that questions be focused on the exhibition, which includes about thirty prints, and not on the "media noise" generated by a potential collaboration of Barceló with the basilica.

Time heals all wounds. Art historian Valentín Roma (Ripollet, 1970) is the new director of Macba after winning the competition convened by the museum. Roma, who is the current director of La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, thus returns to Macba after the downfall of the exhibition La bèstia i el sobirà, during which he was dismissed as chief curator of the museum. According to the competition rules, Roma will be the director of Macba for five years, with the possibility of renewal for three more years. The General Council of the Consortium of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona appointed him this afternoon unanimously, after his project obtained the best evaluation in terms of merits. The incorporation will be effective in the coming weeks. According to the statement made public by the museum, in its conclusions the evaluation committee, which includes representatives from the Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat and the Ministry of Culture, highlights "the solidity of the project presented by the candidate, as well as the coherence and rigor of his professional career, which will allow him to lead the institution with intellectual ambition, dynamism and relevance". The salary will be 115,000 euros gross per year.

The trajectory of Ceràmica Cumella is profoundly marked by the legacy of Antoni Gaudí: Toni Cumella (Granollers, 1951) has worked on the restorations of Parc Güell, the Teresianes school, and Casa Batlló. And for almost twenty years he has been working for the Sagrada Família: the tower of Jesus, which Pope Leo XIV inaugurates this Wednesday, is the latest major milestone, shared with his son Guillem, representing the fifth generation of ceramists. Together, father and son have taken on commissions that are only suitable for very expert experts.

Triplet of Catalan architects in the Architecture awards given annually by the Superior Council of Colleges of Architects of Spain: Carles Enrich, the Miralles Tagliabue studio and the improvement plan for Fira de Barcelona. The awards ceremony, sponsored by Compaq, was held this Tuesday at the Teatro Alcázar in Madrid.

The crowning of the cross of the Jesus tower of the Sagrada Família, which the Pope will consecrate on the 10th, has paved the way for the installation inside of the lamb by the Italian artist Andrea Mastrovito (Bergamo, 1978). Based between his hometown and New York, Mastrovito is increasingly recognized for how he has brought his drawings into other fields such as installations, animated film, as is the case with Nysferatu – Symphony of a century, and public works, often of a sacred nature.

The draftsman Ricard Opisso (1880-1966) had bitter memories of the Nativity façade of the Sagrada Família: for some years he dedicated himself to killing and dissecting sparrows and canaries to use them as models for the sculpted birds found all over the work. "By Gaudí's inexorable decree, I was in charge of the killing," said Opisso, in a text recovered by architect and Gaudí expert Chiara Curti in the collective biography My Gaudí (Triangle Books). "After taking their lives - he explained - I then had to remove their abdominal viscera, to then arrange them in suitable positions to serve as models for the official sculptors [...] Even today, when I pass by and gaze ecstatically at all that overhang and the ornithological bustle, after more than half a century, I seem to sense in the atmosphere a strange putrid and nauseating stench of decomposing entrails". But the story had a happy ending, because the feat Opisso recounted was saving a canary that an imposing Gaudí had brought him. "Gaudí, with his half-monastic, half-demonic face, looking at me intently, with those blue eyes that pierced the soul and caused shivers, handed me the small cage, at the same time telling me in a rough and domineering voice, in which there was no inflection of tenderness: 'Richard, take this; kill this bird, place it with its wings outstretched in a flying attitude'," recalled the draftsman.

The Puig family's art collection is growing. As the ARA has learned, the Puig family bought Joan Miró's painting La nuit (1974) in 2024, and the work has been on display at their corporate headquarters in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat ever since. The painting was owned by one of the artist's grandsons, Joan Punyet Miró; and the sale has the particularity that La nuit was part of the deposit of works that Miró's heirs made to the Fundació Joan Miró in 2021, and that the president of the board, Sara Puig, is a member of this perfumer dynasty. Punyet Miró had withdrawn the deposit of La nuit in the same year, 2024.

When Antoni Gaudí obtained his architect's degree, the director of the School of Architecture, Elies Rogent, dedicated a phrase to him that is one of the best known: "We have given the title to a genius or a madman, time will tell," said Rogent. Although Gaudí's academic record was not among the most brilliant, it already showed a very unique talent, and later he revealed himself to be a true innovator. In the final stages of the Sagrada Família works, the debate about the advisability of its continuation still persists. But beyond tastes and theories on how to intervene in heritage buildings, it is undeniable that the continuators of the temple leave a great legacy of innovation in the field of incorporating new technologies into construction.

At the Sagrada Família, the centenary of Antoni Gaudí's death will be commemorated by the inauguration and blessing of the Jesus tower by Pope Leo XIV. As soon as the technicians removed the scaffolding, the four-armed cross that crowns it, at 172.5 meters high, became a global icon. Currently, the construction of the entire temple is 80% complete, and these will be the next architectural milestones. The forecast is that the works will be finished around the year 2035.

Catalan art dealers celebrated the annual awards gala this Tuesday at Macba. The nineteenth Night of Gallerism recognized the diversity and scope of art galleries and collecting. The honorary awards went to artist Francesc Torres and the Mayoral gallery. Likewise, Lluís Bassat and Carmen Orellana received the second award for the promotion of visual arts, "for their central role in the conservation, study, and dissemination of art".

More than ever, architecture is now Barcelona's most recognizable emblem nationally and internationally; from Barcelona World Capital of Architecture and the World Architecture Congress to the placement of the cross on the Jesus Christ tower of the Sagrada Família. It is also a time of major projects, including the transformation of the Tres Xemeneies building in Sant Adrià de Besòs into Catalunya Media City. For this reason, this concrete giant hosted a dinner a few days ago with about thirty guests organized by Turisme de Barcelona, with some of the most prominent Catalan architects and national and international journalists from generalist media and others specialized in architecture, including ARA. Among the international journalists were editors from The Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Art Newspaper, Monocle, Giornale dell'Architettura, and Wallpaper. The dinner was part of a three-day program that also took them to places like the Casa de l'Arquitectura, at the old headquarters of the Gustavo Gili publishing house; to the exhibition Seny i rauxa at Dhub; to the Casacuberta Marsans collection; to the expansion works of Fira de Barcelona, and to the Mies van der Rohe award exhibition. Another of the notable activities was being able to observe the renovation of La Rambla from the viewpoint of the Columbus Monument. Among the institutional guests were representatives from Barcelona Regional and from the companies Roca and Santa & Cole. "We work to bring good tourists to Barcelona, and we don't just think about the city of Barcelona, but about the metropolitan area," said the general director of Turisme de Barcelona, Mateu Hernández.

The Asland cement factory, promoted by Eusebi Güell in Castellar de n’Hug (Berguedà), forever marked the history of the neighboring town of La Pobla de Lillet. The factory's impact on the municipality's urbanistic and social structure has been defined as the transition, in a few years, from the Middle Ages to the modern world. And in the entire project, two works by Antoni Gaudí stand out: the Xalet del Catllaràs and the Artigas gardens, an commission from the businessman Joan Artigas Alart. For this reason, after celebrating Güell Year five years ago, the town is now celebrating Gaudí Year with some sixty events, organized by the Lillet Study Centre with the collaboration of the La Pobla de Lillet Town Council. Highlights include a film about the relationship between Güell and Gaudí with the town and an exhibition with large-format models of the old Asland factory, which began operating in 1904, and Gaudí's works.

The new director of the Picasso Museum of Barcelona, Rosario Peiró (Beniarjó, 1968), has arrived at the institution with an ambitious project. One of the cornerstones of the strategic lines she made public this Friday is the complete overhaul of the permanent collection. A common place to justify the collection's shortcomings is to say that the Picasso Museum of Barcelona is the best for understanding his formative period. Now Peiró wants to go beyond this period and represent the entirety of Picasso's relationship with the city.