The new Barcelona Telefónica headquarters building designed by architect Enric Massip is a 110 meters tall tower rising from the very beginning of Diagonal Avenue as a delicate curtain wall supported by a light white steel mesh growing from the pavement to complete and decidedly dominate the surrounding urban landscape.

The presence of Diagonal Zero Zero tower in Barcelona Fòrum area and the visual power of its white sunlit color determine the choice of very specific hours in which to photograph it to carefully control the shadows projected by neighboring buildings and to select, above all, a contrast ratio to preserve the detailed drawing of the white façades silhouetted against the dense blue sky.

Sunlight is clean and exact and always lights up the frame with precise direction and contrast: in architectural photography is always the sun who says the last word.

The representation of an elevation view has meant since architectural photography exists a way to truthfully document the exact proportions of a building and accurately capture the detail of its parts.

Under this approach, elevation shots appear as frames in which the vanishing point of the image is placed in the center of the photographed structure and a flat lighting is used to reduce the depth of the shadows with the intention of recovering the linearity and two-dimensionality of an architectural drawing.

While it is true that an elevation shot can successfully document the information reflected in a drawing, when in the process of photographically interpreting a project I use elevations to focus attention on some elements that I want to highlight in my frame to graphically simplify its appearance -no matter if they are lines, shapes, colors or textures-, and to abstract them.

Probably it ends up that framing an elevation shot becomes very intuitive because the elements in the image are harmoniously arranged into the camera viewfinder very quickly and naturally. That’s why I know that if it takes me so much longer than usual to create a frame … something is not working and I will finish rejecting that picture.

It took me very little time to solve the elevations in the photographs of Josep Llobet projects that you can see here.

The office building at 31 Europa Square at L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, designed by architects Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramón Vilalta is a recycled steel low height block with a visible structure unfolded like a powerful ribs curtain that firmly supports the building and smoothly allows light and air to penetrate it.

I planned the building exterior photographs to first communicate its kind presence on its site, then capturing the apparently tense dialogue between the project and the rest of the buildings in Europa Square and, surely and above all, to catch the complex richness of color and texture of the steel structure.

I decided to use the last afternoon lights of the setting winter sun and the diffuse light after sunset to communicate the ideas I had in mind: using this light I managed to simplify the building volumetry -I ran the obvious risk of making it too dense …- lightening its presence on my frames eliminating any deep shadows or violent highlights, and expanding the color range of the metal in both the steel skin of the project and the huge glass facades of the neighboring buildings. … Read more …

The first thing that called my attention when looking at Barcelona Rosselló Street Emma Room Mate Hotel by architects Yolanda Nadal and Luís Moneo were the many white lit pieces distributed on its façade rectangular surface and how these pieces were dissolved by the surrounding urban landscape.

The hotel façade is intentionally lightweight because of the pieces apparent motion as seen from Enric Granados Street on the left side of the building and compact when looking at the very same lit rectangles as seen coming from the right from Balmes Street.

I was specially concerned in preserving the subtle connection between the white texture inside the lit pieces in the night façade and the detail in the huge black area in wich the white rectangles are rhythmically arranged: although exposure and contrast were difficult to control, losing detail in both blacks and whites would have meant a quite unpleasant look in my photographs far from what I saw and felt when I first noticed the hotel delicate urban presence.

French architectural magazine Archicréé is using many of my Barcelona 22@ photographs on its December 2010 #348 Urban Mixing issue. They have published Melon District Hotel, Saló Llull arrangement and 199 Diagonal Ave. by Blanch & Conca Arquitectura, Indra Headquarters Building by Fermín Vázquez / b720 Architects, Mediatic Building by Enric Ruíz-Geli / Cloud 9 Architects and ME Hotel by Dominique Perrault.

You can find these and many other Barcelona 22@ projects at the gallery section on the site: some of them are Agbar Tower by Jean Nouvel, Ca l’Aranyó by Valls & Benedito, Can Framis by Jordi Badia / BAAS Architects, 123 Diagonal Ave. by Dominique Perrault, 197 Diagonal Ave. by David Chipperfield and Pere IV, iLlacuna and Can Gili Vell buildings by Blanch &  Conca Arquitectura.

22@ Barcelona project is converting formerly industrial Poble Nou area into an innovative district now housing intensive knowledge based activities: it is the city’s most important project of the last years in terms or urban transformation and infrastructure creation and large amounts of both public and private resources are being invested.

Many important architectural firms are developing projects that are changing the face and the mood of the city and astonishingly transforming Barcelona urban landscape. These firms’ proposals are sowing the city with new shapes, colors and textures that I had not seen through my camera’s viewfinder for years.

I have been photographing many of 22@ projects since year 2007, specially Blanch + Conca Arquitectura works (Melon District Hotel, Diagonal 199, Pere Quart Building, ILlacuna Building …), and projects by David Chipperfield, Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault, b720, Cloud 9 and BAAS Architects.

There are still many interesting works in progress that I will add to my gallery as soon as I photograph them. Patience is required when you are in architectural photography …

I decided to portray Enric Ruiz Geli & Cloud 9 Architects Barcelona MediaTIC Building as the light and elastic volume I found when I first planned my photographs on location.

In order to capture the precise image I had in mind, I looked for a point of view where the metallic structure that frames the building and supports its suspended galleries was shown as both as resolute and delicate and on a proportion not so heavy to fade the complexity and subtle movement on the main facade elements.

The sunset light coming from nowhere draws transparency and gloss on the building front, simplifies the shapes on the image and gives it a distinctive cold cast in blues and greens.

September is here, autumn is getting closer and a new season starts today. Seasons may sometimes look alike, but I feel this one is going to be very different with amazing projects, assignments and ideas to explore. Just to begin this brand new season, I have uploaded some recent photographs for you to my gallery that you don’t have already seen …