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1880
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1885 - 1888
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1888
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Coffee-Restaurant of the 1888 International Exhibition
The building highlights new architectural values as part of the first Universal Exhibition. It consists of a large dining room and a cafe on the ground floor, a rectangular box with folded façades, so that the exterior image of the building is modeled independently of the interior requirements. The four corners are highlighted by four towers with different crowns. The structure responds to a rigorous application of the brick and iron factory, protagonists of the new architecture. The relationship between the ornamentation and the structure is also clearly resolved: the battlements of the outer wall surround the building accompanied by glazed ceramic shields with airtight inscriptions. This is the first building-manifesto of modernism, which shows some guidelines that later other architects will apply to more complex programs.1887 - 1892
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1916
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1927
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Escales, Mirador i Escultures La Terra, L'Aigua i Dones
Josep Llimona i Bruguera, Frederic Marès i Deulovol, Josep Puig i Cadafalch
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1923 - 1928
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1928
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1926 - 1929
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1927 - 1929
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Palace of the Graphic Arts
Raimon Duran i Reynals, Pelayo Martínez Paricio
The palace is located on a steeply sloping site, which served to centralise the access in the middle of two curved ramps that converge. The organisation of the building is based on creating a central body that takes the form of a triumphal arch or Renaissance façade, crowned with a pediment, and a dome with a hexagonal drum that acts as a lantern that illuminates the interior from above. Two loggias or porticoed galleries start from the main body on each side, with semicircular arches supported by Tuscan columns, which are crowned by small temples with hexagonal domes. These porticoed galleries conceal the two wings in which the building completes its space. The work that Pelai Martínez carried out in La Bisbal d'Empordà as municipal architect and the relationship with the firm Terracotta Fuster in the production of terracotta is evident in every detail of the building, as it is with these materials that all the ornamental elements are made, which give the whole a strong chromatic contrast with the smooth, whitish stucco of the walls. The echoes of Florence are evident and, in this sense, the admiration that both architects felt for Brunelleschi is very noticeable. It was built between 1927 and 1929 to become the Palace of Graphic Arts for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, under the design of the architect Pelai Martínez i Paricio, with the collaboration of Raimon Duran i Reynals. The latter made a long trip to the Italian city in 1920, accompanied by Nicolau M. Rubió Tudurí, a great admirer of Brunelleschi. -
Palace of Agriculture
Manuel Maria Mayol i Ferrer, Josep Maria Ribas i Casas
Located in the Sants-Montjuïc district, the Agricultural Pavilion is located within the grounds of the 1929 International Exhibition, right on the border of the França Xica district and Montjuïc Park. Formed by several bodies, this group of buildings occupies the corner between Passeig de Santa Madrona and Carrer de Lleida, articulating its volumes around a central courtyard today known as Plaça de Margarida Xirgu. Currently, only half of the original buildings are preserved. It was one of the biggest pavilions of the exhibition, with a surface that exceeded 16,000 m2. The entire complex was distributed around a large central garden courtyard with several porticoed naves and galleries. The whole complex follows the canons of noucentista architecture, adopting, however, an Italian Renaissance language. While the walls of the façades are coated with white and yellow mortar, the supporting elements, the framing of the openings and the decorative elements were made of terra cotta. The body facing the Passeig de Santa Madrona stands out for the porticoed gallery that surrounds the old main entrance to the site, which frames a monumental terra cotta portal with Ionic pilasters decorated with quarterings. Above the moulded arch of the door there is a terra cotta relief with two allegories of field work and the inscription "AGRICVLTVRA". However, the most important thing about this construction are the multiple octagonal towers that protrude above the roof, covered with tiled domes decorated with ceramic pinnacles, and the large dome with a central drum. The façades of this building include a veritable catalogue of Renaissance windows, based on arch galleries, entablature, pediments, shells and chandelier decoration. At the corner between Carrer de Lleida and Passeig de Santa stands out a plaque supported by two angels made in bronze by Frederic Marès in memory of the architect Manuel Maria Mayol stands out. The façade facing Plaça de Margarida Xirgu presents a large entrance box with lowered arches supported on robust columns with Ionic capitals. This box maintains a very clear formal correspondence with the courtyard of Casal Solleric in Mallorca city, this being a likely source of inspiration. On this façade there is a bas-relief of a classical theme representing an athlete, the work of Frederic Marès. The interiors of this body were greatly transformed due to abandonment and new uses, although the main hall remains - a space with a Greek cross plan crowned by a large dome decorated with paintings referring to life in the countryside, work by Darius Vilàs. The body facing Carrer de Lleida, today occupied by the Teatre Municipal Mercat de les Flors, presents an access body crowned with domes attached to a large nave with a rectangular plan. The access body, which forms a corner, presents two access boxes formed by three terracotta arches on Tuscan stone columns and two window galleries with Tuscan columns and a terracotta eaves. In the corner, a large shield of Barcelona in terra cotta supported by four angels of the same material was embedded. The angles of this body are finished with towers crowned with domes and ceramic pinnacles. In the middle rises a dome of greater dimensions. The interior of this body houses a large circular hall with large Corinthian columns on the first level and galleries of Ionic columns on the second, bearing the weight of a dome decorated with paintings by the Mallorcan artist Miquel Barceló. On one of the walls that link to the new building of the Institut del Teatre, there is a ceramic mural by Frederic Amat. The Agricultural Pavilion was built between 1927 and 1929 under the technical direction of the architects Josep Maria Ribas i Casas and Manuel Maria Mayol i Ferrer. They conceived it as a monumental complex of buildings in several bodies around a central square in order to host the agricultural section of the International Exhibition of 1929. During the post-war period the pavilions that surrounded the central square on its northern and eastern sides they were completely demolished and replaced by new homes, leaving less than half of the buildings that made up the complex standing. These went on to house municipal warehouses and workshops and, between 1964 and 1984, the Mercat Central de la Flor, until it was moved to the Mercabarna area of the Zona Franca. In 1983, the city council's culture councillor, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, promoted the creation, in the nave perpendicular to Carrer de Lleida, of Mercat de les Flors, a municipal centre for dance and movement arts. The building, reopened in 1985, was remodeled to accommodate its new uses and its main dome (12 metres in diameter) was redecorated by Majorcan artist Miquel Barceló. From 1999, the sector facing the Passeig de Santa Madrona was also rehabilitated to host the headquarters of Teatre Lliure, an institution founded in Gràcia in 1976 and which would grow with the inauguration of the new headquarters in November 2001. On the occasion of that inauguration, the old central courtyard was redeveloped with a new square which was dedicated to Margarida Xirgu. Parallel to these refurbishments, on the northern flank of the square, which had also been demolished, the new headquarters of the Institut del Teatre, an underground car park and Plaça Ovidi Montllor were built there. All in all, the complex is currently known as the City of Theatre, as it houses the Mercat de les Flors Municipal Theatre, the Teatre Lliure Foundation, and the Theatre Institute. -
German Pavilion of the 1929 International Exhibition
The German pavilion represents a new way of conceiving space, and it is completely different from the traditional one and consistent with the possibilities offered by the new metal pillar structures. Mies takes this constructive innovation to the limit of its visual possibilities, allowing the enclosing walls to be freely distributed throughout the floor plan. Another remarkable aspect of the pavilion is the selection of high-quality materials and very intense colours, as well as the introduction of two sheets of water in the exterior spaces. Bruno Zevi carries out an investigation where he aesthetically places the architecture of the pavilion within neo-plasticism, an anti-classical movement which Mies belonged to. The dynamism of the horizontal and vertical planes of the pavilion clearly responds to the aesthetic principles of this avant-garde movement and is clearly opposed to the static conception of Greco-Roman art. The pavilion should be read as a manifesto that will determine all of Mies's latter architecture and will influence successive generations of modern architects. However, the Catalan architects of the Republic had already taken sides with Le Corbusier and the CIAM, and the influence of Mies would have to wait until the 1950s. Contrary to general opinion, this pavilion should also be read as a new housing prototype that Mies has successively presented at different international exhibitions: the Glasraum in Stuttgart, 1927; the German Pavilion in Barcelona, 1929; and the House for a Bachelor in Berlin, 1931. All of them are variations of a new typology of courtyard houses. In the 1950s, Oriol Bohigas contacted Mies van der Rohe to rebuild the Barcelona pavilion. Mies gave his consent and was willing to carry it out personally; however, he did not authorise the reconstruction of the monument to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg because he did not respect the original location. Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Fernando Ramos and Cristián Cirici completed the reconstruction in 1986, on the centenary of Mies' birth.1928 - 1929
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Casa Saladrigas
Casa construïda entre 1926 i 1931, un cop derruïda la original, per l’arquitecte Isidre Puig Boada (1891-1987) per encàrrec de l’empresari Manuel Saladrigas Freixa (1872-1949). L’arquitecte Isidre Puig Boada fou deixeble d’Antoni Gaudí i director de l’obra de la Sagrada Família de Barcelona a la seva mort. L’empresari Manuel Saladrigas era un industrial que tenia una fàbrica tèxtil al Poble Nou de Barcelona i estiuejava a Blanes. En aquella zona hi vivien i donaven classe varis mestres, d’aquí que el passeig s’anomeni actualment “de la Mestrança”. Durant la Guerra Civil, a més de classes particulars, s’hi van celebrar misses clandestines organitzades pel mossèn Agustí de Blanes. La casa va ser conservada per la filla de Manuel Saladrigas, Teresa, i va resistir a l’embat constructiu dels seixanta fins que fou protegida per l’Ajuntament als vuitanta i adquirida pel mateix Ajuntament a finals dels anys noranta. El 13 d’abril de 2003 es va inaugurar la restaurada Casa Saladrigas com a Sala d’exposicions municipal en un acte multitudinari. Casa construïda entre 1926 i 1931, un cop derruïda la original, per l’arquitecte Isidre Puig Boada (1891-1987) per encàrrec de l’empresari Manuel Saladrigas Freixa (1872-1949). L’arquitecte Isidre Puig Boada fou deixeble d’Antoni Gaudí i director de l’obra de la Sagrada Família de Barcelona a la seva mort. L’empresari Manuel Saladrigas era un industrial que tenia una fàbrica tèxtil al Poble Nou de Barcelona i estiuejava a Blanes. En aquella zona hi vivien i donaven classe varis mestres, d’aquí que el passeig s’anomeni actualment “de la Mestrança”. Durant la Guerra Civil, a més de classes particulars, s’hi van celebrar misses clandestines organitzades pel mossèn Agustí de Blanes. La casa va ser conservada per la filla de Manuel Saladrigas, Teresa, i va resistir a l’embat constructiu dels seixanta fins que fou protegida per l’Ajuntament als vuitanta i adquirida pel mateix Ajuntament a finals dels anys noranta. El 13 d’abril de 2003 es va inaugurar la restaurada Casa Saladrigas com a Sala d’exposicions municipal en un acte multitudinari.1926 - 1931