CaixaForum Barcelona

CaixaForum Barcelona occupies the Casaramona factory, a modernista textile mill designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch and completed in 1913. With its red-brick walls, crenellated rooflines and slender towers, it looks more like a fantasy castle than an industrial building. The mill operated for only a few years. After later use as police stables and barracks, it was restored by "la Caixa" Foundation and reopened as an arts centre in 2002.

Visitors enter through a sunken plaza designed by Arata Isozaki, sheltered by steel-and-glass canopies shaped like trees, before passing into the old brick halls. Inside, the galleries present changing exhibitions that range across art, history and science. The programme also includes concerts, talks and film.

The building sits at the foot of Montjuïc, a short walk from Plaça d'Espanya and directly across from the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe. It draws roughly two-thirds of a million visitors a year and appeals both to exhibition-goers and to anyone interested in Catalan modernista architecture.