IES Fontajau

Public high school in Girona. Architecture by EMBA, Estudi Massip-Bosch Arquitectes.

A view of Fontajau High School's modern exterior with a row of trees and parked motorcycles in front, against a clear blue sky.
Interior of the gymnasium, featuring a spacious open floor with large windows and a vibrant red accent wall.
Classroom with wooden desks and chairs, a large blackboard, and windows allowing natural light to illuminate the space.
Side view of the High School showcasing the building's linear design with extensive use of windows and external shading devices.
Close-up of Fontajau High School's exterior showing the detailed metal cladding and a triangular window feature.
Architectural photograph of a long, linear two-story educational building. The industrial facade features alternating horizontal bands of corrugated metal cladding, continuous windows, and grids of translucent glass blocks. Slender steel columns support the clean line of a concrete roof overhang. In the foreground, a large, flat sandy schoolyard stretches out under a bright, clear blue sky.
Exterior view showing a modern architectural design with clean lines and large windows under a clear blue sky.
Modern architectural details of Fontajau High School, showcasing its sleek lines and large windows under a clear blue sky.

Educational Architecture Photography: IES Fontajau by EMBA

This architectural photography showcase documents the modern structure of IES Fontajau, a public secondary high school in Girona’s Fontajau neighbourhood. Designed by EMBA, Estudi Massip-Bosch Arquitectes, led by Enric Massip-Bosch, this educational building is a masterful study in contemporary institutional design.

The photoshoot focuses on how public architecture can foster an inspiring learning environment through clean structural geometries, vast windows, and integrated community pathways.

Capturing Sleek Exterior Geometries and Urban Integration

The exterior architecture photography emphasises the building’s striking volumetric presence and its relation to Girona’s public landscape.

  • Sleek Minimalist Facades: The compositions leverage sharp horizontal and vertical perspective lines, framing the crisp exterior panels and massive glass openings in clean daylight.
  • Contextual Framing: Rather than isolating the building, the images place the school’s facade with trees and street-level details such as parked motorcycles. This grounds the structure in its active community context.

Documenting Luminous and Functional Educational Interiors

Photographing interior institutional spaces demands balancing spatial volume with the functional materials used in daily student life.

  • The Volumetric Gymnasium: A key sequence captures the expansive school gymnasium. Wide-angle frames emphasise the double-height open floor plan and vibrant multi-sport flooring. A grid of windows anchors the composition and shows how the design fills the athletic space with soft, diffuse light.
  • The Modern Classroom Environment: Inside the classrooms, the photography shifts to a calm, contemplative mood. The frames capture rows of wooden desks and chairs, with large blackboards in the background. Carefully metered exposures show how natural light enters through deep-set windows, reducing harsh shadows and preserving a focused academic environment.

This architectural portfolio piece provides a visual archive of public works excellence and innovative educational spatial planning in Catalonia.