Edifici Hispano Olivetti, building in Barcelona Province, Spain

The Edifici Hispano Olivetti is a seven-story office building completed between 1960 and 1964 on Ronda de la Universitat. Its north-facing facade features large glass panels mounted in a steel frame that flood the interior with daylight, while the south side includes an overhang to shield against direct sun.

In 1929 the businessman Juli Caparà i Marquès founded Hispano Olivetti in Barcelona as the Spanish subsidiary of the Italian typewriter maker. After the Civil War the firm built a factory near Plaça de les Glòries, and its sales arm, Comercial Mecanográfica SA, commissioned BBPR (Belgiojoso, Peressutti, Rogers) to design this office and showroom building, built 1960–1964. Olivetti sold it in 1998; after a full remodelling in 2015–2016 it became a hotel.

The Olivetti name comes from the Italian typewriter maker whose Spanish subsidiary, Hispano Olivetti, was founded in Barcelona in 1929 by the businessman Juli Caparà i Marquès. This building housed Comercial Mecanográfica SA, the sales and exhibition arm, and its ground floor was conceived as an open exhibition space. Two exposed bush-hammered concrete pillars stand at its centre.

The building sits on a main street near the university and is easily accessible by public transportation. The glass facade provides clear views of the interior from outside, and the large ground-floor entrance is straightforward to locate and approach.

The ground floor, designed as an open exhibition space, holds two exposed pillars of bush-hammered concrete. Above them, the curtain wall sets fifteen glass panels per floor in metal frames that cantilever over the street, stepping back toward the centre of the facade.