Barcelona's Gherkin

London is not the only city to have a giant Gherkin. Barcelona has it's own gherkin, the Torre Agbar, a 38 storey skyscraper designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel. The tower is located by Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes at the western edge of the recently developed neighbourhood Poblenou. Poblenou was formerly an industrial area that has been centre of an extensive urban regeneration project since 2000. 

The sky scraper was completed in 2005 and despite initial criticism from the people of Barcelona it has become an architectural icon for the city of Barcelona and is now on the tourist trail. Even when we were nowhere near the Plaça de les Glòries we found ourselves using the tower, visible from many parts of the city, as a point of reference to help navigate our way around.

Here we were by the Arc de Triomf and could see the tower peeking over the Estació del Nord‎.

And here we were in the Parc de Montjuic in the south west of Barcelona overlooking the city.

From a distance the tower looks like a smooth round ended tower. It is apparently nicked named the "el supositori" (the suppository), "l'obús" (the shell), and was described by Jean Nouvel as having a phallic character. 

Well yes... *coughs*. 

As you can see the night time lighting is quite spectacular. 

When you get up close the details are impressive to, I always prefer materials that have some texture, depth and colour. The Torre Agbar has all of these, both at day...

...and at night.

We were in Barcelona as guests of the budget Spanish airline Vueling and the award-winning Indie Internet radio station ScannerFM for the #MyVuelingCity bloggers meet. 

Muchas gracias!