Torre Agbar

Barcelona, Spain

Photo © Rafael Vargas

Architects: b720 Fermin Vazquez arquitectos

Location: Avinguda Diagonal, 08018 Barcelona, Spain
Year: 2005

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ATELIERS JEAN NOUVEL

The Agbar Tower is a “small skyscraper” of 35 floors and 142 meters. Its shape emulates a water-jet under constant and stabilized pressure, an ideal image for the corporate headquarters of a water company.

The building responds to a model of core and outer perimeter carrier. These two cylinders of concrete with oval plan are supported in frames of metal beans bearing forged metal undulated sheet and a layer of concrete. The eccentricity of the core organizes the plant: the space is compressed in the lobby and is expanded generating space for offices. The outer cylinder is straight until the 18th floor plant and it bents until the 26th. A glass dome with a metal structure tops the building. The latest six floors are suspended in cantilever. The skin is pixelated as a plot of module almost square. On this grid the windows are placed, forming a “calligraphy”. Following this framework, modules of lacquered aluminum sheet of 25 colors are placed and a second skin of glass louvers with different grades of transparency blurs the tower.