Facade covering, Mercat de Santa Caterina, Barcelona, Spain

The undulating, polychrome-tiled roof of this 21st-century produce market is a great place to shop for bananas and stop for lunch. Local architect Enric Miralles designed it on the site of its 19th-century predecessor, which itself replaced a medieval Dom

inican monastery.

The multicoloured ceramic roof (whose ceiling is made of warm, light timber) recalls the modernista tradition of trencadís decoration. Indeed, its curvy design, like a series of Mediterranean rollers, seems to plunge back into an

era when Barcelona's architects were limited only by their (vivid) imagination (the market roof bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Escoles de Gaudí at La Sagrada Família). The market's 1848 predecessor had been built over the remains of the demo

lished (and by all accounts grand) 15th century Gothic Monestir de Santa Caterina, a powerful Dominican monastery. A small section of the uncovered foundations have been glassed over in one corner as an archaeological reminder.

All pictures

: Mercat de Santa Caterina, Barcelona, Spain
Architects: Embt Arquitectes Associates SL, Barcelona, Spain