First year at the Ciutadella campus

UPF’s Ciutadella campus was opened on 25 September coinciding with the start of the academic year. Specifically the Jaume I building and the Jordi Rubió i Balaguer agora came into service, the main area of access to the campus beneath which the auditorium, the exhibition hall and the Reflection Room are housed.

The Jaume I building’s nigh-on 21,400 square metres housed the faculties of Humanities and Economics and Business Sciences and the University School of Business Sciences. The presence of 2,800 students, 230 lecturers and 130 administrative and service staff injected a breath of life into the Olympic village, the new district of Barcelona.

The rehabilitation of the Jaume I building by the architects Esteve Bonell and Josep M. Gil converted an old military barracks dating from the end of the 19th century into a modern University premises. In turn, the creation of the Jordi Rubió i Balaguer agora, a project by Jordi Garcés and Enric Sòria, transformed a basement into multipurpose University facilities totalling 2,224 square metres. The four architects were jointly awarded the 1996 City of Barcelona prize for architecture and urban planning for the ensemble of works carried out on the Ciutadella campus.

Photo: Pasqual Maragall, mayor of Barcelona; Jordi Pujol, president of the Generalitat (government) of Catalonia; Enric Argullol, rector of UPF; Xavier Trias, minister of the Presidency, and Juan Echevarría, president of the UPF Board of Trustees, on the day of the inauguration (from left to right).