Culture of Barcelona

Barcelona is an international hub of highly active and diverse cultural life with theatres, concert halls, cinemas, museums, and high-value architectural heritage.

CaixaForum Barcelona is an important art complex focused on temporary exhibitions and a wide array of cultural activities.

The museum complex, once a factory designed by modernist architect Josep Puig i Cadalfalch, was renovated by Arata Isozaki to include 3 exhibition rooms and an auditorium.

Despite its focus on temporary exhibitions, CaixaForum also houses permanent interventions by Sol Le Witt, Lucio Fontana and Joseph Beuys.

The Museum's assets consist of more than 800 pieces of great historical value, spanning various cultures' erotic manifestations of both a ritual/religious as well as recreational nature.

Catalan Modernisme architecture (often known as Art Nouveau in the rest of Europe), developed between 1885 and 1950 and left an important legacy in Barcelona.

This was based on Ildefons Cerdà's linear mid-19th century urban plan, which was revolutionary at the time and which is still notable for allowing new architecture to be built on unused ground.

Adolf Florensa, one of the first architects to adapt structures from the Chicago School, was in charge of many original works in Via Laietana, the Palace of Communications and Transports of the 1929 World Exposition and most especially the new urban plan of the Gothic Quarter.

Since the constructive work done for the 1992 Summer Olympics and with grand-scale urban regeneration taking place in time for the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures, Barcelona has become a center for avant-garde architecture, starting with the Hotel Arts and its twin the Torre Mapfre.

[7] Barcelona won the 1999 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for its architecture,[8] the first (and as of 2011, only) time that the winner has been a city, and not an individual architect.

Sónar by day is held close to Les Rambles, whereas Sonar by night takes place in a complex just outside the main city.

[10] In addition to museums and galleries, the Barcelona city council runs a scheme involving converted factories, warehouses and other industrial buildings.

Its old location at Avinguda de Sarrià, in Eixample, was replaced by a new building in El Raval during early 2011 which includes a specialised library for film researchers.

The world-prestigious ESADE headquarters is in Barcelona, which hosts business students from around the world and offers an additional program in Spanish for professionals in all industries.