Thinking back on visiting Barcelona it are the beautiful buildings and large avenues that immediately come to mind. When I recently got a sneak peek of the new Aesop store at Avenue Diagonal in Barcelona I learned about the Barbany family of master stonemasons, that have worked on the city’s edifices and monuments for more than 130 years using Montjuïc stone from the eponymous mountain just outside of Barcelona. This type of stone has a exquisite colouring and is known for its strength.
Aesop asked Barcelona based Mesura to design their second Barcelona store, a social timeless and local space. They delved into the the history of Barcelona’s public fountains and concluded stone was the most suitable option. Committing themselves to use only local stones for their quality and to make the project sustainable and purposeful for the long term they started searching valuable, reusable materials.
Creative anastylosis
In their search they discovered an old quarry where remnants of demolished buildings in Barcelona, constructed with Montjuïc stone, were stored and it turned out to be a perfect fit for the project. Barbany artesans had been storing remnants of the rock from demolished nineteenth century buildings in a defunct quarry for years.
Mesura conducted pseudo archeology, discovering, under wild vegetation, pieces from Gothic quarter buildings, ancient fountains, arcades and plinths. Seventy-eight of these shards, carefully catalogued and assembled, now make up the installation within Aesop Diagonal. See a video here
Read more about the process of creating this beautiful new Aesop location at the Mesura website
Find the Aesop stor here: Aesop Diagonal
And please have a look also at these Aesop stores I covered on vosgesparis before:
Aesop opened their first location at Amsterdam
A minimal Aesop store | Covent Garden London
A new AESOP Store in San Francisco | Tacklebox architecture firm
Images Maxime Delvaux, used with permission of Mesura
