W Barcelona: The Sail at the End of the Sand
Why is it significant?
Walk out to where the promenade ends and the wind picks up, and face the giant blue-glass sail standing at the edge of the sea. In the morning it reflects the sky; at sunset it turns orange and pink; at night it glows like a lantern. Barcelona calls it simply la Vela, the Sail.
Key Facts
| Place | W Barcelona: The Sail at the End of the Sand |
|---|---|
| Address | Plaça de la Rosa dels Vents 1, 08039 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.36880, 2.19000 |
| Part of Walk | Barceloneta and the Sea: Barcelona's Fishermen, Bombas and Beaches |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk out to where the promenade ends and the wind picks up, and face the giant blue-glass sail standing at the edge of the sea. In the morning it reflects the sky; at sunset it turns orange and pink; at night it glows like a lantern. Barcelona calls it simply la Vela, the Sail.
It is the W Barcelona hotel, designed by the Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill and opened in 2009. Bofill was a provocative figure, a rebel who had built utopian housing blocks in the 1970s, and here he gave the city a single, simple gesture: a sail filling with wind at the mouth of the port, the first thing ships see as they come in. It stands roughly a hundred metres tall.
And like Barceloneta itself, it stands on land that did not exist. This tip was created as part of a large expansion of the port at the start of this century, when new breakwaters and docks were built further out to sea. Every few decades Barcelona pushes its coastline a little further into the Mediterranean, and every few decades the city argues about it.
The Vela was no exception. Many Barcelonans saw it as a luxury tower planted on a public coast, and the debates about Spain's coastal law and about who the seafront belongs to lasted for years. Today it is part of the skyline, as accepted as the cable-car towers you just passed, but it is still a good symbol of a question the city asks itself constantly: who is the sea for, the neighbours or the visitors?
Before you turn back, look the other way, along the coast. The whole line of beaches stretches away to the north-east, all the way to two tall towers in the distance, which is where this walk ends. Now turn round and walk back along the sand, onto the beach of Sant Sebastià, the oldest bathing beach in the city.