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Torre Agbar: The 21st Century Skyscraper

March 14, 2008 – 12:11 am | Written by KiwiPulse

This massive skyscraper Torre Agbar (Agbar Tower) was inaugurated officially in September 2005 in Barcelona by the King of Spain, Juan Carlos. The Agbar Tower was designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel. According to Nouvel, the shape of the Torre Agbar was inspired by the mountains of Montserrat that surround Barcelona and by the shape of a geyser of water rising into the air. The building is the new headquarter for the Agbar Group in which the company are dedicated to services, distribution and treatment of water. It’s the third tallest building in Barcelona, only after the Arts Hotel and the Mapfre Tower.

The facade of this building is covered by over 4,500 glass windows. The glass windows have an integrated temperature sensors which open and close depending on the temperature, reducing the consumption of energy for air conditioning. Inside the facade the walls are covered with multi-colored facade of aluminum panels in 25 different colors. At night, the Agbar tower give a unique feature with its nocturnal illumination. Over 4,500 led luminous devices allow this fascinating building to form luminous images in the facade.

“This is not a tower. It is not a skyscraper in the American sense of the expression: it is a unique growth in the middle of this rather calm city. But it is not the slender, nervous verticality of the spires and bell towers that often punctuate horizontal cities. Instead, it is a fluid mass that has perforated the ground – a geyser under a permanent calculated pressure.

The surface of this construction evokes the water: smooth and continuous, but also vibrating and transparent because it manifests itself in coloured depths - uncertain, luminous and nuanced. This architecture comes from the earth but does not have the weight of stone. It could even be the faraway echo of old formal Catalan obsessions, carried by a mysterious wind from the coast of Montserrat.

The uncertainties of matter and light make the campanile of Agbar vibrate in the skyline of Barcelona: a faraway mirage day and night; a precise marker to the entry of the new diagonale that starts at Plaça de las Glorias. This singular object becomes a new symbol for an international city.” - Jean Nouvel

Source: Flickr [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]