Piscines Picornell

The Bernat Picornell swimming pools on Montjuïc were originally built for the 1970 European Swimming Championships and redeveloped in 1991 by the architects Moisés Gallego and Franc Fernández as part of the Olympic Ring project. They consisted of three outdoor pools on a rectangular site with concrete stands. The most important part of the new intervention centred on the training pool, which was covered and heated. This created a simple volume with two distinct blocks: a lower, elongated one placed around the outdoor pools and another taller, squatter one around the covered pool and changing rooms. The largest volume has a compartmentalised façade with two solid walls flanking a glass one. An eye-catching metal structure supported by two pillars rises above it. The interior pillars are straight while the exterior ones are tilted, forming a zig-zag armature that becomes the characteristic element of the façade. The main swimming pool was made deeper so it could host the synchronised swimming competitions, while the stands retained their original capacity of 3,000 spectators. Provisional stands were fitted to boost capacity during the 1992 Olympics and were later removed.