Throughout its history, Spain has been shaped by a wide range of cultures and civilizations, including Muslim, Phoenician, Roman, Greek, Carthaginian, and Visigothic influences, which are reflected in its architecture and design.
We have deployed several types of cooling systems here, each one used depending on climatic conditions. The system, created millennia ago but updated for the 21st century, works by cooling water underground in the naturally low temperatures at night. To cool water more quickly, some is also sent to the roof via solar-powered pumps and sprayed out of nozzles in a thin layer through a method known as a falling film, before draining back down underground.
The bike I'm borrowing is much lighter than my own, with tyres twice the width, and drop handlebars splayed out to the sides for extra control. The gearing goes much lower than I am used to, meaning even the steepest slopes should be eventually surmountable.
Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia - famous for its modernist architecture, world-renowned museums and contemporary foodie scene - welcomed 16 million visitors last year, a figure that has been rising significantly since its post-pandemic levels of around 12.4 million in 2022.
With their red-tile roofs and stucco walls so commonplace that they've become part of the landscape, the homes of the Spanish Colonial Revival tapped the climate, local materials and an idealized view of history to become the signature style of Southern California.
Oskar: We matched on Tinder in Bali the day before he left, so we didn't physically meet. He was living in Melbourne at the time, and I actually had plans to move there. Santi: A month later, I asked him on a date. We watched Bridesmaids at an outdoor cinema. Oskar: I was obsessed. But I didn't have a permanent place to live... Santi: ...which is when my friend and I found a three-bedroom and needed another roommate. Oskar: We moved in as friends. Santi: At least, that was the plan. But that first night, I was really cold and I found my way into his room.
Designed by noted residential architect Roland E. Coate, the home was built in 1926 for Annie Wilson, daughter of pioneering Southern California businessman and politician Benjamin Wilson, for whom Mt. Wilson is named. The gently sloping 1-acre-plus property was once part of the vast holdings of George S. Patton, father of the famed U.S. general.
MADRID - The most famous portrait of Maruja Mallo depicts the artist covered from head to toe in seaweed. She is crowned and draped with long, rope-like strands of kelp, her arms raised triumphantly like an all-powerful marine goddess. This unconventional photograph, snapped in 1945 by the poet Pablo Neruda on a Chilean beach, was no doubt carefully orchestrated by the Spanish artist, who viewed herself as an extension of her unique work, where female energy is a conduit for natural and even cosmic forces.
The key find is a stretch of pavement made of slabs of Montjuic stone (rock extracted from the Montjuic mountain that overlooks Barcelona and has been the source of building material and infrastructure for the area since the pre-Roman Iron Age). It dates to between 15 and 10 B.C., the earliest founding years of the Roman city. It is made of precisely cut rectangular blocks, the largest of which are 1.48 long by 1.18 meters wide (approximately 5 by 4 feet).
The Reina Sofia's new rehang opens, quite pointedly, with a painting of a detained man sitting, head bowed and wrists shackled, as he waits for the arbitrary hand of institutional bureaucracy to decide his fate. The picture, Document No , was painted by Juan Genoves in 1975, the year Francisco Franco died and Spain began its transition to democracy after four decades of dictatorship.
A lightweight, 3D printed and textile roof protects the Tombs of Postumio and Tres Puertas at the Archaeological Complex of Carmona in Seville, rethinking how contemporary architecture can engage with heritage conservation. The project by Juan Carlos Gómez de Cózar and Manuel Ordóñez Martín introduces a single canopy that covers both Roman tombs while operating as an environmental machine designed to stabilize their long-term preservation.
Updated for modern living, this remodeled home in Highland Park has stayed true to its 1930s Spanish Revival beginnings. The open living and dining room features a brick fireplace and the original hardwood floors. A courtyard sits off the master bedroom.
A group of polychrome wood panels discovered under the floorboards of a house in Toledo in 2018 are going on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. They were found during construction of a hotel planned to go up over several buildings in the Bajada del Pozo Amargo street next to Toldeo's Cathedral. They had been stripped from their original location on the upper part of the walls of a quadrangular hall and reused as raw carpentry material in the house's subfloor.
The design of this pantheon challenges the classic structures aiming to host the eternity. Unlike the traditional pantheons in the area, this project full of meaning and coherence balances unusual materials within the traditional enclave in the Requena cemetery.
Casa La Vista is a residential project by MEDEZA CDQ and VERTEBRAL located on a cliff within the desert landscape of Baja California Sur, . Positioned among dunes and overlooking the coastline of San José and Punta Gorda, the house is oriented toward the southeast to frame the horizon where sea and sky meet. The project responds to the region's extreme climatic conditions through a spatial and tectonic strategy that prioritizes orientation, shading, and material performance.
Ba-rro: "Our starting point is always the context and what already exists." We are interested in recognizing the value of things simply because they are there, without assuming that everything must be preserved as a matter of principle. The question isn't what can be kept, but what deserves to be kept in each specific project. The decision to preserve, reveal, or remove doesn't stem from universal values or a nostalgic impulse, but from a situated interpretation:
House prices in Spain rose by 1.8 percent month-on-month and 19.9 percent year-on-year, bringing the average price of homes February this year to 2,950/m, according to data from the Fotocasa Real Estate Index. Buying a home in Spain now costs 40,000 more than it did a year ago.