Overlooking Barcelona, a visit to Lievore Altherr

23.03.17

It’s the beginning of January and coming from a snowy Venice, the blue sky and the striking sun are quite a pleasant relief. We’ve just got off the 8am flight and we’ve made our way from El Prat airport to what we then discover is the Barrio Gotico district of Barcelona. We’ve arranged to meet designer Alberto Lievore and Jeannette Altherr in their studio in Plaza Berenguer, in the late morning.

It is about 12 o’clock when we get to their door. Someone lets us up. Jeannette Altherr is the one opening the door as we reach the last floor of the building, a luminous attic.

We all step outside to a lovely tiled floor terrace overlooking the city. A view both to the sea and to the Catalan mountains. Quite enviable. Olive trees and rosemary in bloom increase the architectural fascination.

Mr. Lievore is a charismatic and communicative person, with great cultural baggage. He tells us he moved to Barcelona in the 70s, a fertile period due to the cultural revolution, perfect for him to take roots to his design visions. He describes the architecture of the studio and the several renovations they made over the years.

He shows us around. A vivid white and mild wooden-tones environment. White crackling wooden floors. A bright light coming from big windows. The studio is full of remnants from past projects: scale models, excess materials, drawings, all arranged in a tidy disorder.

It’s always curious to perceive by intuitions life and personality of people by getting a glimpse of their working space. It’s something extremely fascinating. It is rather difficult to picture the wrong portrait. Jeannette Altherr and Alberto Lievore are two passionate, cultural, pleasant individuals, that’s what joins them.

And there we were, talking about form, the essence of design, capitalism, food, and Majorca.