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1838
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1846
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1847
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1849
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1850
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Gispert House
autoria desconeguda
On the 5th of December 1911, the doctor from Centelles Josep Gispert bought the shop from Francisco Cuadrenys for his two sons, Enric and Alfons; hence the name of the shop - E&A Gispert. The focus of the business is on the wholesale distribution of products. In 1993, Enric Gispert's widow -the last of the line- transferred the shop to the Margenat brothers, who decided to open the shop to the general public. Since 2013, the business has been run by Gemma Marin and Enric Comelles.1851
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1862
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1864
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1870
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1871
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1875
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1880
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Vicenç Mestres House
Building between partitions, with four bays. It consists of a ground floor and a floor, with an Arabic tile gable roof. There is a rear gallery and patio. The doors have trilobed arches. There are reinforced mortar balusters and the use of brick. The architectural language responds to the characteristics of modernism, used in an austere way. The house is located in the wide area formed on the sides of the Sant Martí de Sarroca road, BV-2121, opened in 1881. It is an interesting area in terms of eclectic and modernist architecture.1881
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1883
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Torner i Güell House
Building between partitions, with three corridors, consisting of ground floor, mezzanine, two landings and roof with a turret and a viewpoint. The façade is of exposed brick, with the exception of the ground floor and the mezzanine. It has a symmetrical composition. The glazed ceramic tiles and the roof rail, in moulded ceramic, are interesting elements. In the centre of the façade’s roof there is an 1884 inscription. The Torner i Güell House is located in the 18th century area that was built up after the demolition of the old medieval wall. The house was built on the initiative of Antoni Torner i Güell and directed by the master builder Josep Inglada i Estrada. In the archives of the Vilafranca City Council, two projects dated from 1884 are preserved, one dated August 4 and approved on the 12th of the same month, and another dated November 17, which presents the addition of a new flat, approved two days later.1884
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1889 - 1890
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Lebon Gas Company
Francesc de Paula del Villar Carmona
The building - current headquarters of the "Mutua General de Seguros" - was built between 1894-1896 as a representative and office building for the Company of Gas Lebon following a project by the architect Francesc de Paula Villar i Carmona. The plot is part of a unique double block delimited by Carrer d'Aribau, Diputació, Balmes and Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, mostly occupied by the large building of the University of Barcelona. It is a quadrangular building that sits on a rectangular plot, much of which was originally intended for a garden and is currently used as a car park. One of the most relevant aspects of this building and what makes it one of the most outstanding constructions of the end of the 19th century in Barcelona is precisely the originality of the project. We are referring to the fact that it looks like an exempt building despite being the head of a continuous band of buildings aligned on Carrer de Balmes. The architect achieved this effect by attaching the building to the middle of Carrer de Balmes, but opening its main façade towards the garden which was accessed from the Gran Via. The building consists of five levels of height clearly differentiated into three bodies. The lower one, almost like a base, has a very different material treatment from the rest of the façade. Made with stone blocks arranged in regular rows, it has two levels, a lower one where the current entrance to the Mutua is located (on Carrer de Balmes). Above this lower level there is a second floor, which opens to a series of low arches that give it the appearance of a gallery or very diaphanous body. However, this second level gains prominence in the area of the old garden where the main entrance was located. On this front, a monumental staircase with a stone railing gives access to the interior of the building through the second level. This entrance is also protected from atmospheric agents such as sun or rain through the overhang of the balcony that develops on the main floor. Regarding the rest of the façade, the homogeneity of elements and composition on the three fronts should be highlighted. In this sense, on top of the stone base, where the openings of the two interior levels are framed, the body of the façade is properly developed. Separated from the lower one by a running cornice, this becomes more prominent in the corners, where the towers develop, becoming an overhang that forms the base of the tribunes on the main floor. These tribunes are configured as a rectangular element resting on sculpted corbels, with a stone railing and Ionic columns that support an entablature that is the base of the balcony developed on the second floor. The windows on the main floor are framed by Ionic pilasters that incorporate several diamond-pointed ashlars into the shaft and that become the only ornamental element apart from the smooth entablature that crowns them. On the second floor, on the other hand, the windows – although they keep the same type of pilaster – are configured as a spandrel balcony and are finished with semicircular pediments that contrast with the mouldings on the top floor. The building is finished with a powerful cornice to which circular openings open in the form of portholes sculpted with floral decoration and which coincide with the vertical axis on which the windows are arranged. Above the cornice there is a last floor with mansards and a roof on a slope which is the result of a later work. As for the corner towers, as already mentioned, they present one more level than the rest of the façade, in which a kind of open gallery develops through a triple opening with arch and central pillar. The towers are covered with a false mansard roof that is topped with a flat roof with an iron railing. Unlike the base level made of stone, in the rest of the façade the predominant material is brick, arranged in horizontal strips and which contrasts with the whiteness of the artificial stone of the mullions and lintels of the windows. The building was designed by the architect Francesc de Paula Villar i Carmona in 1894 on behalf of the company Gas Lebón – one of the pioneers in the state in the production and marketing of gas for public and private lighting of the city. The original project did not foresee the mansards, which are an added element that considerably modified the perception of the façade, as it visually narrows the angular turrets and reduces the verticality of the whole in general.1894 - 1896
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1896
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La Confianza Shop
Former ‘fideueria’ or pasta and oil shop. "La Confianza", has a modernist decoration and preserves practically all the elements that Puig i Cadafalch designed – tempera on paper, display cases, showcases and oil tanks. On the outside, the tiles and irons that make up the store's name are also preserved. The state of conservation is precarious, especially with regard to the frescoes, which are quite damaged by humidity, and also to the decorative elements of the wardrobes. In the window, some wrought iron that held the baskets of vegetables is missing. Decorative elements It was designed by Puig i Cadafalch in 1896 at the request of the owner, Francesc Palomer. It basically consists of cupboards with showcases, the sideboard, wallpaper on the walls and a plaster frieze. The cabinets and display cases, made of wood with glass doors, were used to display the different types of pasta and semolina. They are elongated vertically with decorations that make them look like little chapels. The sideboard is made of marble, and on the outside there are some forged irons destined for the sacks of legumes. The walls of the store are decorated with wallpaper in three different colours, representing the repeated drawing of a Gothic cross. On the wall, just above the warehouse door, there is a small plaster frieze in the form of a garland, where the owner's name, F. Palomar, and the year 1896 are engraved. Probably from an earlier period are the oil tanks, with a sink and a metal grate. As indicated by a plaster frieze inside, the decoration was carried out in 1896, when it was owned by Francesc Palomer and the designer Josep Puig i Cadafalch. It is currently a grocery store, run by the Pinós family. -
Serra i Corominas House
autoria desconeguda
Building between partitions with a rear garden, a ground floor, two landings and a roof. The composition of the façade is symmetrical and features elements that correspond to the language of neoclassicism (posters, capitals, tympanum, corbels, etc.). This house is located in front of the station, in the area of the Eixample that began to be built in 1865, in an environment in a constant process of degradation. It was originally surrounded by side and rear gardens, and there were side galleries with ground floor and one landing. They later disappeared because blocks of flats were built on both sides.second half of the 19th century
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Carbonell House
It is a building between partitions intended for single-family housing and commercial uses. The property has an irregular floor plan, consisting of a basement floor, a porch floor divided into a ground floor and a mezzanine, and two floors. The roof is flat and the ladder box attached to the partition protrudes. The façade is composed symmetrically on two vertical axes. The porch is of singular height with two intercolumniations, with supports of square section formed by base and shaft with corbels and diamond cushions. Interior façade with curved lines and floral ornamentation. We find a balcony run with an iron railing and blocks matching the pillars of the porch and two fluted jamb openings that link with the abutting balconies on the upper façade. The crowning is formed by a cornice with corbels. The facings on the main floor have horizontal bands and those on the upper floor are stuccoed simulating bricks.