The facade greeting Ohla
Art and design converge at Ohla Barcelona like two people meeting in the street. First, its optical façade, a work by Frederic Amat, greets passers-by and guests creating a dialectic play of glances. Its thousand eyes were placed with pin-point precision, like an acupuncture treatment. Each of the ceramic eyes is a piece of art for its individual and unique elaboration by the ceramist Antoni Cumella.
The hotel is located in Via Laietana, whose name represents the ancient Iberian tribes that populated these lands. In Roman times this was the place where the water pipes passed through and supplied the city of Barcino. Here is where the palace of the first Count of Barcelona was built, and the current facade of the building housed the city's first commercial department store, Casa Vilardell. This facade is listed as Urban Heritage and was the canvas on which sculptor Frederic Amat designed his work, thus creating one more layer of history.
