arts & culture

Barcelona has no shortage of rooms where you can stand and dance. Rooms where you can sit and listen are harder to come by, and Casa Montjuïc – behind a plain door on Vila i Vilà, a block off the bright end of Paral·lel – is the best one to open in years. Edu Roehrich started it in 2023 and still programs it himself.

The concert hall leans into ambient and experimental music, played to a seated audience that came to hear it. Lawrence English, Visible Cloaks, Ezra Feinberg and Abul Mogard have all passed through, and the Music for Airports cycle, run with the promoter platform Please Advice, gives the calendar a steady spine of long-form listening nights. Around them the bookings range into experimental rock and electronics.

The cinema handles the other half of the brief. Fuga, the house film cycle, takes its model from MoMA’s New Directors/New Films and favors first and second features – the programming asks you to take a chance on a name you don’t know yet, and it has a good record of rewarding the gamble.

The address has history: this was Sala Hiroshima, the dance and performance venue that closed in 2021, and the building still works as an ensemble. Laut, the electronic club run by Edu’s brother Marco, connects through next door, and Tiberi Bar handles the eating and drinking. Come for a film, stay to see what’s on across the hall.