Bold high-rise design marks a moment in the city’s transformation

Rising 154 meters above Barcelona’s waterfront, Hotel Arts is a strikingly modern addition to the city’s skyline. As part of a major development planned for the 1992 Summer Olympics, the building is more than a hotel—it combines apartments, offices, and retail spaces, and connects to a pedestrian promenade along the coastline. An enduring testament to the city’s Olympics legacy, Hotel Arts is one of Barcelona’s tallest buildings and an emblem of the post-industrial renewal of its waterfront.

Engineered for efficiency

The Hotel Arts’ distinctive “exoskeleton” design makes it a key example of SOM’s structurally expressive architecture. The tower’s steel structural frame is exposed, and pulled away 1.5 meters from a prismatic glass facade. With the steel members and joints on display against the backdrop of glass, the building design uniquely highlights the structural engineering system.

Continuing decades of applied research in efficient high-rise design, the SOM team developed an innovative “braced megaframe” structure. Vertical braced frames rise at each corner of the building; these are connected horizontally at three floors to create the megaframe steel structure. At the center of each X-brace, horizontal steel members connect the exterior frame to the floor framing. Thanks to these interconnected frames, the entire building acts as a rigid tube, a form that is highly efficient in its resistance to wind and seismic forces.