Located in the Eixample district, the Cerdà Houses are three very similar buildings that make up three of the four chamfers of the intersection between Consell de Cent and Roger de Llúria Streets. They are buildings between homes that share the same urban guidelines as well as constructive solutions.
These are buildings that meet quite precisely the parameters proposed by Ildefons Cerdà for the Eixample; buildable depths of around ten metres and heights between four and five floors. Compositionally, they all present very regular geometries that enhance the vertical component both in the axes and in the proportions of the windows. The construction solutions are solid and austere, and the decorations are simple, only offering visual richness with the presence of sgraffitos on the street façades.
The three buildings are equivalent in all respects. Two of them, numbers 340 and 371 of Consell de Cent, are identical and only differ from the third by the material of the railings and the presence of sgraffitos. These two buildings show such a regular and rhythmic composition of façades that the only reference to centrality is given by a single balcony in the middle of the chamfer. Not even the size of the balcony window corresponding to the central balcony deviates from the canon of the façade. In its completely flat façades, the vertical axes of balconies with a railing integrated into the façade wall are offset by small cornices that separate the floors. The sgraffitos bring a wealth of shapes and colours to façades dominated by compositional and decorative austerity. Its height distribution is a ground floor and four floors. The top floor replaces the balcony with a square window. It presents a recently built penthouse that was executed with the transformation of the building into a hotel. The distinguishing feature of these two buildings is the use of ceramic railings in all their balconies.
On the other hand, the building on 369 Consell de Cent with 51 Roger de Llúria Streets, although it follows the same formal and urban planning guidelines as the other two, maintains two different constructive façade solutions; the use of metal railings and the incorporation of glazed galleries in the two corners of the chamfer. In this case, it maintains the balcony solution up to the top floor and does not have façade sgraffitos.
The interior layouts are tidy with few communal stairs and spacious well-lit floors. The ground floor of all three buildings has openings for premises with sparse arches without decorations.
The roof of all three is flat. The perimeter of the crowning is solved with a solid work sill supported on a cornice with a continuous profile of a classic character.
Artistically, the delicate sgraffitos, attributed to the Italian artist Bellamini, feature a series of idealised human figures on pedestals and other classical ornamental forms. The use of sgraffitos by the artist to add a classical order to the façades especially around the bare openings such as entablature and pediments stands out.
The Cerdà houses, built in 1863, correspond perfectly to one of the typologies proposed in the " Reform and Expansion Plan ", approved in 1859, and specifically to one of the possible solutions for the controversial chamfers of the Cerdà Plan: immediately after the approval of the "Law of the Eixample of Barcelona" in 1859, companies were created to encourage their creation and construction. The urban development of Barcelona had Passeig de Gràcia as its axis, where the various recreational gardens that were there gradually became theatres as the population flocked there. The first sector of the Eixample to be built was the one later called "Dreta de l'Eixample", between Passeig de Gràcia, Passeig de Sant Joan, Gran Via and Diagonal Avenue, where the houses of Cerdà and the Passatge Permanyer (1864), which acted as enhancers of the rest of the area. The land included at the confluence of Llúria and Consell de Cent Streets was popularly called, since its foundation, Cerdà Square, but the attribution of this name is due to the owner of the land, Josep Cerdà i Soler, a Barcelona merchant who ceded it for the opening and organisation of the streets.
