Handmade Tale

A Spanish designer’s loftrenovation becomes a gritty, authentic and carefully crafted tribute to life on the Med

- Rocio Ley 

Seeing those grey and brown factories, their geometric forms stacked as if Juan Gris or Picasso had been charged with planning the skyline, takes me back to what first attracted me to this apartment,’ says Barcelonabased Spanish designer Gabriel Escámez. ‘I still take the time to contemplate them every morning when I wake up.’

Like many apartments in the El Poblenou district, the loft, which he shares with his partner Carlos and their pet bird, Bambino, is housed in a former factory building. An extensive yet until-recently abandoned industrial part of the city, El Poblenou has taken the route of gentrification à la Maboneng, becoming the embodiment of the gritty-urban brand of cool that siren calls tech start-ups, bob-cut gallerists and multidisciplinary designers, Gabriel himself not excluded. ‘This neighbourhood has not stopped transforming ever since we decided to move here last year,’ he says. As an art director and designer, Gabriel has his eye fixed on furniture pieces and lighting that resonate with a sense of Mediterraneanness, a feeling that has certainly come to define his own interiors and way of living.