Mural de l'Aeroport de Barcelona

You only have to step off the plane when you arrive at Barcelona airport to realise that the city is going to be full of art. This is borne out by the fact that a large mural by Joan Miró made of ceramic pieces on the façade of Terminal 2 welcomes us to the city.

It was about 1968 when the artist expressed his intention to donate to Barcelona four major works dedicated to the city of his birth: the sculpture Dona i Ocell (Woman and Bird) in the Parc de l'Escorxador, the mosaic in the Pla de l'Os, the central section of La Rambla, the Foundation that bears his name, and the airport mural. The artist's intention was to welcome people arriving in the Catalan capital by land, sea or air.

Once again, Miró worked with his friend, the ceramicist Josep Llorens Artigas, to create the mural, which covers the façade of Terminal 2 with colour. The two men had worked together on several mosaics in the 1960s. The work was completed in 1970 and is 50 m wide and 10 m high. Miró remained true to his painstaking and reflective style and spent many hours creating this vast mosaic, which he completed with his characteristic brightly coloured 4.865 ceramic pieces and his own distinctive symbols: stars, birds, cartwheels, the sun and the moon. Today, we can all see this work on our arrival at Barcelona Airport.