9. La Caixa
Bank branch that occupies the entire space of one of the old vaults of the circus.
This building was the premises of the old Cafè Moka and was acquired by la Caixa, now Caixabank, in 1997. During the following years, the banking institution undertook a series of reforms aimed at turning the entire building into a bank branch which would also preserve as much as possible of the structure that serves as the building’s foundation: one of the vaults of the Roman circus. These objectives were accomplished through three tasks: the clearing of the floors built directly on top of the Roman stands; the marking out of the shape of the original stands on the modern walls and existing remains; and the creation of a glass front behind the original façade of the building so the public is able to see its interior. Thanks to these reforms, the la Caixa building has become an unmissable site to visit in order to admire the true magnitude of one of the dozens of vaults of the city's Roman circus.
Access to the space is found at number 45, Plaça de la Font.
The building preserves a large part of the front ceiling of the Roman vault, the furthest from the arena. The vault’s rear ceiling, however, is now long gone. The side walls that support the vault have elements of the original opus quadratum and opus caementicium, but in part of the sections these construction techniques have been replaced by later constructions of different characteristics, including openings and fillings of sections of the walls or replacements of apparently damaged sections. In the front of the premises we can see the exterior wall of the original vault, joined by a unique row of half-buried opus quadratum, visible today through a glass floor. The building’s other highlights are the delimitation that is made between the Roman construction and the modern building built above, and the presence of two Gothic arches, one on top of the other, which are found at the rear of the premises.
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Bank branch that occupies the entire space of one of the old vaults of the circus.41.1166552 1.2555764
