The office of Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners has commissioned me to take some photographs of his conversion project of former Barcelona Las Arenas bullring into an entertainment and leisure complex.

The space has been projected to become a new landmark and a monumental entrance to the city that has as main feature a dome that crowns the building as a new public square suspended in the air that is supported by the powerful orange brick mass enhanced and carefully preserved from the old historic building.

My pictures had to represent as essential requirements by the project architects in London both the decided presence of the building in its urban setting and the new and prominent floating square over the city.

Being obvious that any point of view from street level interpreted the ideas that I had to represent with very little resolution and that they could even get dissolved, it became necessary to locate some vantage points in Plaza de España and Tarragona street from where to work and graphically inscribe the large bullring oval dome on the dense and ordered urban fabric of the Barcelona Eixample limits.

Similarly, it was also vital for the graphic treatment of the images the choice of a more vivid contrast and saturation in my photographs in order to highlight the particular use of color in Las Arenas project as is characteristic and distinctive in the work of Richard Rogers.

You can see more Las Arenas photographs in the Specials section in the Gallery of the site.