The Consulate General of Italy in Barcelona opened in mid-June the doors of its new headquarters located at 185 Aribau Street. The move has been largely due to the exponential growth of the Italian resident population, which has increased by 40% in the last 5 years, leaving the previous headquarters obsolete to provide adequate services to the 108,354 Italians living in an area ranging from Aragon to Murcia including Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and Andorra.
“The space of the new Consulate General of Italy in Barcelona is based on a totally innovative concept and stems from the firm commitment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in favor of Italian communities abroad – says Consul General Gaia Danese -. Inspired by organizational well-being, it promotes accessibility to citizens, is conceived as a point of reference for the management of administrative services, and also as a new space in the city to make visible, transmit and share the values of Made in Italy. For this reason we wanted to realize it with the participation of great Italian excellence in interior design, with the collaboration of the students of the Istituto Europeo di Design and generating a dialogue between a Catalan architect and an Italian interior designer living in Barcelona. We are very grateful to all of them”.
“We were faced with a complex program of offices, customer service, representation and meeting areas, which had to meet strict safety requirements and at the same time represent a paradigm shift towards a space that is not only technical and administrative, but also friendlier and warmer, where visitors are welcomed as if they were at home. To meet this objective, the route has been specially designed so that the security elements go unnoticed and are fully integrated into the interior design, thanks also to the choice of warm materials and more domestic furnishings,” explains Schiavon.
The presentation of the new Italian Consulate General in Barcelona is the starting point to reflect on the role of design in the renovation of institutional spaces. A new orientation towards hospitality, beauty and organizational well-being, which involves involving the excellence of design to become a space for meeting and promoting the values and talents of the Italian System.
