A Whimsical Water Tower in…Barcelona?

I spotted this fantastic water tower the other day while walking around Poble Nou, Barcelona’s industrial graveyard. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen (authors of a major public sculpture in this city) could not have done a better job than this. I mean, you just gotta love that corrugation detail! Judging by the looks, it seems to be a relic from a defunct cardboard box manufacturer whose logo was the Star of David, no less.

Having grown up in Montreal, I was instantly reminded of that city’s famous Guaranteed Pure Milk Company water tower. But then North American cities are places one would expect to find these kinds of quirky pop-constructions (the Orange Julius, a chain of roadside juice stands in the form an orange, is Montreal’s answer to a Las Vegas duck). Barcelona, on the other hand, is not the first place that comes to mind when it comes to NON-pedigreed architectural whimsy, so it is very endearing indeed to stumble across something like this in my adopted hometown.