The Petit Palau respectfully expands Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana—a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the best preserved and most used art nouveau buildings in the world, as well as one of the world’s leading concert halls—with a new service building and underground performance space. The expansion exposes the original Palau structure on all sides as had been originally intended. The new 538-seat auditorium contains state-of-the-art features that could not be retrofitted into the Palau’s main concert hall. The small—only 2,100 square meters (22,600 sf)—site on which the building was constructed between 1905 and 1908 posed numerous challenges to its execution. Architects Oscar Tusquets and Carles Díaz worked on this and previous Palau projects for more than two decades, accomplishing a major renovation and expansion effort that addressed numerous challenges while honoring architect Lluís Domènech i Muntaner’s original vision for the Palau.

Developer
Fundació Orfeó Català–Palau de la Música Catalana
Barcelona, Spain

Owner
Orfeó Català
Barcelona, Spain

Architect
Tusquets, Díaz, & Associates
Barcelona, Spain

Principal Author(s)
Julie Stern

ULI Awards for Excellence 2007 Winner