Barcelona Christmas Lights, Spain
Xmas light that beats and makes wishes take flight in Barcelona.
Plaça Catalunya is one of those places where the city explains itself. A meeting point between historic and modern Barcelona, a stage of continuous activity and collective memory, its urban identity pulses all year long. This winter, that pulse takes on new form with El Cor de la Ciutat, the lighting installation created by Artec Studio. The intervention fills the air with 2,025 suspended elements, transforming the square into a changing landscape of reflections, colour and movement by day and night.
The project stems from a personal memory of Maurici Ginés, founder and creative director of Artec Studio, who feels a deep connection with this space. “As a child I used to come to Plaça Catalunya, and I was fascinated by the moment when all the pigeons took flight at once. That gesture of movement and life is the emotional origin of the project.” From that image, the design proposes a floating topography that interprets the lightness of air and the vibration of collective movement. The suspended pieces do not literally represent birds, yet they evoke their presence through vertical elements that sway in the wind, variations in height and a layout that, when viewed from the ground or above, traces soft heart shapes in the sky. This breathing geometry turns the public space into a sensitive and emotional environment without losing its urban scale.
The supporting structure is almost invisible. A network of galvanized steel poles, more than ten kilometres of cables and tensioners reuses existing infrastructure and blends discreetly into the surroundings. Suspended from this aerial mesh are the 2,025 translucent polyester elements, each between 1.5 and 2.5 metres long. Their dichroic finish — in warm and cool tones — turns every piece into a dynamic surface capable of reflecting and refracting natural light in multiple directions.
By day, El Cor de la Ciutat is activated by the sun. The dichroic pieces cast shimmering tones across the pavement like a living mosaic, shifting from gold to pink, green to blue. Visitors perceive the square as a space animated by wind and light, where every step changes the experience. The installation reconnects with Barcelona’s chromatic tradition: light filtering through modernist stained glass, the fragmented luminosity of trencadís, and Gaudí’s ability to turn light into matter.
At night, the installation reveals a second dimension. Each element contains a warm 5 W LED that generates a subtle lighting choreography moving gently across the square. The programming is autogenerative, never repeating the same sequence. There are calm moments when the light shifts line by line like a heartbeat; moments when the heart-shaped areas intensify; and sequences where the light flows in soft diagonals, evoking natural movement. The square seems to breathe, change tempo and beat, becoming a living environment.