Pictures
Building structures in La Ribera quarter
Guided by Esteban Ariza
Building structures in La Ribera quarter
The purpose of this walk is discovering the history of La Ribera’s quarter by visiting different amazing buildings with high quality structure solutions.
The tour starts under a colorful roof held by steel beams covering a market, which was a former convent. A lot to say in very few time as we have to move on, but Esteve will try his best to comprise hundreds of years in a detailed explanation about this great contemporary intervention by Enric Miralles.
We will continue walking through narrow streets named according to each guild and discovering why, we will soon reach another Barcelona’s old central market, this time not in use anymore. We want to stop here to understand again, its light steel structure which functions as shelter for S.XVIII ruins.
Leaving the old town, we will walk to Ciutadella park, built in the late nineteenth century for the 1889 Universal Exhibition. Although inside the park there are many interesting buildings we will focus our visit in the amazing curved wooden roof shading a tropical garden. We will understand the process of construction and pay attention to very interesting details.
Finally, we will continue towards a wooden facade which wraps a sports centre. During its construction some remains of the old military Ciutadella were discovered. Our tour ends in an astonishing train station: Barcelona França station facing the neighbor country France, this station is made with steel and glass but most of all it is made with light. It is a great experience to discover all its secrets with our local architect who is a passionate of architectural structures.
Buildings you'll visit
- Santa Caterina Market
- Born market
- La Ciutadella building structures
- Sports Hall
- Barcelona França Railway Station
Make a reservation
Basic information
Please note than once you have booked the tour/visit you’ll recieve an email with the complete information.
Availability
Monday to Sunday
Duration
3 hours
Languages
English, Italian, Spanish, Catalan
Max / Min People
Max 10 / Min 2
About Esteban Ariza
Esteban is a local architect in Barcelona and a passionate about his city. He has worked as an architect in different architectural offices, working in all kind of fields, from urban planning to social housing and interior design, but at the moment he is focused on sustainable architecture, a discipline that he founds essential in today’s building market.
As an architect student, Esteban spend some months in Italy and back in Barcelona he worked in the MACBA museum organizing temporary exhibitions, after obtaining his degree he started working both in his own architectural practice where he is developing architectural contest with a team of architect colleagues and also collaborating in some building projects with a local architectural firm.
He has lived in Barcelonaall his life, and it didn’t took him too much to completely realize how complex Barcelona is, still as a young boy he took his bicycle to ride alone until the top of Barcelona’s hill through Collserola road. When arriving to the top, he had a complete view of one of the greatest examples of urbanism in the world: Cerda’s plan, which urban richness cannot be compared to any further urban development in the city. In this moment he realized what was going to be his passion, and since then he has been taking all the steps necessary to be actively involved in the development of the city.
This is why when he had to prepare a tour in the city, he thought it could be farther more interesting to not focus on specific buildings but to try to offer a wider vision of the city through its different quarters, parks and key streets in order to help the visitor understand the urban complexity of the city.
Esteban offers his tours in English, Italian, Spanish and Catalan.