Discomfort at the College of Architects with the change of offices to build Espai Barça
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BarcelonaThe remodeling of the Camp Nou, the jewel in the crown of the Espai Barça project, is expected to finally start making clear progress in November. While the Qatar World Cup is being played, the partial demolition of the third tier of the south goal of the Camp Nou will be carried out and the removal of the outer ring and the overhang of the facade. Barça informed this same Tuesday that the preliminary works have already begun and that, from Friday, the video marker in the south goal will be removed, which will no longer work in the Champions League match against Viktoria Pilsen. However, during this week the remodeling of the Camp Nou has also experienced an unexpected turn of events that did not please the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC): the change in the direction of the project.
If the board of directors of Joan Laporta approves it at the meeting scheduled for the week of September 19, the Catalan company Torrella Ingeniería, based in Terrassa and which is focused almost exclusively on the constructions of the industrial sector, will be in charge of of the Camp Nou reform. In a certified letter published this Tuesday, the dean of the COAC, Guim Costa Calsamiglia, regrets that Nikken-Sekkei and b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos do not continue with the work. Nikken-Sekkei won the competition for the design and execution of the new sports complex, while b720 entered the project some time ago as a link between the club and the Japanese firm, after the fall of the Pascual studio -Ausión, who did this function in the beginning.
Costa Calsamiglia signs a letter for Barça’s executive president, Joan Laporta, in which he asks for explanations and asks him to hold a meeting. “We consider that it is necessary to work to promote and encourage good architecture, making the quality criteria that protect the Law of Architecture prevail. That is why I would like us to meet to discuss the issue and find points of convergence to guarantee quality and the continuity of the current project,” writes the dean of the COAC in Laporta. According to ARA, the COAC sent a request for a meeting on Tuesday morning that has not yet received a response. The fact that has raised the alarm at the College of Architects, which has participated so far in the Espai Barça project, is that Torrella Ingeniería is a company eminently dedicated to industrial constructions and that it has no experience in premises sports
Torrella Ingeniería was created in 1959 and by 2022 it plans to have a turnover of 2.4 million euros. The growth of this family business, which employs around thirty people, has been significant in the last two years, in which it has doubled its income. In 2020 it invoiced 1.2 million euros and in 2021 it was 1.9.
IDOM continues to gain prominence
The likely entry of Torrella Ingeniería into the management of the Espai Barça means the departure of the Nikken-Sekkei and b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos from the project, but on the other hand it will not affect the importance that IDOM has acquired in the reconfiguration of the Espai project Barça since the arrival of Joan Laporta as president, in March 2021. In fact, a former employee of this architectural engineering consulting company, Ramon Ramírez, headed the Espai Barça department since June 2021 until June 2022.
Unlike Torrella Ingeniería, IDOM does have experience in sports venues. For example, she was in charge of designing the structure of the new San Mamés and the remodeling of the City of Valencia. In the remodeling of the Camp Nou, it has the help of the Danish studio BIG Architects and the Catalan BAAS Arquitectura, whose main architect is Jordi Badia. If Joan Laporta’s board finally approves the entry of Torrella Ingeniería, it will be necessary to see how the optional management of the Camp Nou remodeling, which is divided between the construction management and the execution management, is shared with IDOM.
