Palau Blaugrana
Visualizing Gensler's New Palau Blaugrana in Barcelona
Sitting right next to Camp Nou
The new Palau Blaugrana is a 15,000-seat multi-use arena designed by Gensler, sitting right next to FC Barcelona’s Spotify Camp Nou. The façade wraps the building in continuous horizontal rods that sweep and fold in organic bands, shifting from golden to warm brown across their length. Underneath, concrete columns lift the mass off the ground, so at street level you get full glazing and people walking through.
Gensler, the firm behind the Chase Center in San Francisco, brought this project to our team as an architectural competition entry. From the start, the brief was straightforward: the smaller arena had to be the hero, not the Camp Nou next door.
The surrounding buildings, a retail village at ground level and a hotel block behind, were treated as background: quiet, glowing volumes, never competing with the arena for attention. The landscape strategy followed the same logic: street trees, large-format pavers with concrete curbs, and planted zones calibrated for each composition rather than dropped in generically.
The lead architect, John Houser, trusted our team to select the strongest camera positions and then guided material and program adjustments view by view. That back-and-forth with John is where the images actually got made.
Production challenge
This was our first major arena interior for Gensler Austin. Stadiums and arenas carry a specific production challenge, as artificial lighting drives everything. There is no golden hour saving you inside a basketball bowl. Every LED ribbon on the scoreboard and every spotlight on the court has to be placed and balanced manually in the scene. The concert configuration pushed it further, fog, lasers, a massive stage wall, show lighting washing 15,000 people in pink and purple, all assembled and tested for a better mood. Filling the bowl with spectators, some waving Barça flags, others in blaugrana jerseys, required custom asset work while deliberately keeping the club branding restrained. The Gensler team wanted the space, the atmosphere, and the crowd to carry the image, not a wall of logos.
We delivered four architectural renderings across two categories. The two exteriors show the arena from different moods, one a street-level composition under clear Barcelona sky with palm trees and urban life around the façade, the other a pedestrian-level approach with Barça fans moving toward the entrance on match day. The two bowl interiors do the same: one in basketball mode with banners, center-hung scoreboard, and 15,000 seats, the other set for a concert with a standing crowd on the floor, stage rigging, and full show lighting.
Competing for approval
When an arena is competing for approval, whether from a jury, a city council, or fans voting in an assembly, the visual is not illustrating the architecture. It is arguing for it. The flowing terracotta ribbons catching Barcelona light and the crowd energy lit like a live event are not decorative choices. They are strategic ones.
The Palau Blaugrana project reminded us that the best renders do not show a building. They show what it would feel like to be there on a weekend, supporting Barcelona’s basketball team, having a hot dog with your kids in a Barça jersey, and walking into a place that feels like it belongs to the city from the very first game.
Project details
Location
Barcelona, Spain
Partner
Team
Róbert Andrékó
Mariia Lazaryk
Péter Kollár
Nelia Correia
Mohamed Atef
Dani Oláh