La Maquinista

Barcelona, Spain

Architects: L35

Location: Potosí 2, Barcelona, Spain
Year: 2000

Shopping centre built on an old factory lot in an area of the city historically isolated by the infrastructure and lack of planning.

It is an innovative, urban Mediterranean mall; open and connected to the urban pedestrian section, with large and varied exterior public spaces covered with pergolas. The staircases become sculptural elements together with the street furnishings. It evokes a certain appearance of the area’s past with the new chimneys, the metal cylinders, canopies, bridges and walkways on different levels that extend the street and identify the place from a distance.

Eleven years after it opened in 2000, 12.000m2, which brought it to its current size, were added to the centre. Two other extensions are currently being planned.