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With more than 300 works, the Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona) has the most comprehensive collection of the Catalan artist, which reflects all the creative periods of the artist. Driven by Antoni Tàpies, the Foundation is a Museum and cultural centre that also works for the study and promotion of contemporary art.
Including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and books, it displays all aspects of Tàpies’ artistic activity. The collection includes a selection of drawings and portraits from the 1940s (Creu de paper de diari - Newsprint Cross), an important example of the matter works of the 1950s and 1960s (Forma negra sobre quadrat gris - Black form on grey square) and a significant representation of the object works of the late sixties and early seventies (Palla i fusta - Straw and wood).
The visitor will discover the different typologies, techniques and materials used by Tàpies: works made of rubber-foam and spray, varnishes and sculptures in refractory clay and objects and sculptures made with metallic plates or bronze.
The Fundació Antoni Tàpies is located in a modernista building designed by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. This construction is unique as it was the first in the Eixample district to combine the use of exposed brick and iron within the urban setting. Currently the building is crowned by the Núvol i cadira (Cloud and chair) sculpture by Tàpies himself, a work which has become a symbol of the Foundation.
Located on the northern side of the Pallàrs Sobirà, is Gerri de la Sal, a small medieval village that still retains its enclosure and which is noted for its industrial and architectural heritage: the alfolí, or salt storehouse, and the Monastery of Santa Maria.
The exploitation of the source of the salt, was, until recently, the main economic driving force for this town, which is reflected in its name. As a witness to this industrial past, the Casa de la sal or the Reial Alfolí de Gerri, the Royal warehouse, where the salt was extracted, treated and stored from the Middle Ages, remain. Considered to have the largest floor plan of any civil building in Pallars, it now houses the Museum of Gerri de la Sal.
The cultural interest of the complex is completed with the remains of an example of the Catalan Romanesque in its purest form: the Monastery of Santa Maria, which lies just outside the village.
Dedicated to the Benedictine order in 1149, it soon became an important evangelical centre for the Bishop of Urgell and also one of the richest. But at the end of the 12th century the Counts withdrew support for the monastery, and took its land and properties. The economic problems and the disputes led to the depopulation of its domains and it was finally deconsecrated in 1835. Of the monastery, now only the Church with the atrium or entrance porch remains. Inside you can see up to 30 decorated capitals.
The Catalan journal Dau al Set (1948) and the artistic group of the same name are considered the most important manifestations of the post-war avant-garde.
The vast majority of its founding members (the poet and playwright Joan Brossa, the philosopher Arnau Puig and the painters Joan Ponç, Antoni Tàpies, Modest Cuixart and Joan-Josep Tharrats) lived in the same neighbourhood of Barcelona, and linked the disagreement with the repressive ideological situation and the limited creative possibilities of the period. They also shared a great creativity, sensitivity and sense of action.
The name of the magazine played with the idea of the impossible (Dau al Set meaning the seventh face of a dice that has only six), and expressed the intention of the group, located between the negation and confusion of Dadaism and the liberating creative expression of Surrealism.
The political circumstances hindered the desire of Dau al Set to influence the social environment, and the freedom of expression of its members was above all creative and artistic. As well, they fought to prevent the expressive forms established by the regime, they showed that repression can not stifle creativity and they were the triggers for new attitudes of free expression.
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), artistic demonstrations in Catalonia adopted modern media such as posters and documentary photography.
The vehicle of slogans for awareness and mobilisation, posters stand out for their artistic creativity and techniques during this period.
Some of the most active poster artists were Josep Renau (Hoy más que nunca: Victoria), Martí Bas i Blasi (Feu tancs, tancs, tancs...), Jaume Solà (Unió és força), Lleó Arnau (Assassins!), Carles Fontserè (Llibertat!), Lorenzo Goñi (I tu... què has fet per la victòria?), Pere Català Pic (Aixafem el feixisme), Antoni Clavé (Catalans!... 11 de setembre), Lluís Garcia Falgàs (Informeu-vos dels que lluiten al front), Enrique Ballesteros "Henry" (Voy a luchar por tu porvenir) and Paco Ribera (Diada de la Dona Antifeixista).
Documentary photography offers a testimony of the reality both at the front and in the rearguard during the Civil War. Catalan photojournalists such as Agustí Centelles, Josep Maria Sagarra or Carlos Pérez de Rozas portrayed the daily life of the conflict side-by-side with the foreign professionals such as Robert Capa or Gerda Tardo, creators of legendary images.
"A great mountain of pure salt that grows as it is extracted." This is how, according to Aulus Gel·li Cató described, in the second century, one of the most important potassium salt mines in the world, located in Cardona. It is a depression of land shaped like an elongated ellipse with an area of 100 hectares and containing unique natural and geological features. It has been exploited as an open mine since the Neolithic era, and from 1900 to 1990 through extraction, following the discovery of potassium salts by the engineer Emili Viader i Solé.
"La Muntanya de Sal de Cardona" (the Salt Mountain of Cardona) is now a cultural and tourist centre dedicated to promoting the importance of the geological site and its utility for man through the centuries.
The museum area is an open space that explains the geology, mineralogy and botany of the "Vall Salina de Cardona" (Salt Valley of Cardona), included since 1992 in the Plan for Areas of Natural Interest in Catalonia.
You can also learn about the history of the exploitation of salt throughout the centuries. Entering the old mining pit, you can see a unique piece of industrial archaeology: salt extraction machinery designed and built during the 1920s.
Right next to the Llobregat river, almost in touching distance of the town of Esparreguera, is one of the main witnesses to the industrial history of Catalonia: la Colònia Sedó. The large 1,400 CV turbine is one of the biggest attractions of the site, a cast iron machine which was the largest and most powerful in Spain and one of the most spectacular in Europe. Nowadays, water no longer drives it, but it has been converted into the Museum which houses the history of the colony.
In the former engine room you can see the model of the colony, where its story is told through a montage of light and sound, and a three-dimensional audiovisual is projected inside the turbine’s water pipe. The visit is rounded off with an explanation of the energy system that powered the industrial complex of Miquel Puig. The walk around the colony allows you to understand the social life and the production process of a 'small town' where the looms lived alongside the workers.
The Colònia Sedó industrial complex was founded in 1846, taking advantage of the waterfall of the old mill of Can Broquetes. Currently you can still see the halls dedicated to spinning the cotton, the canal and the lock of the waterfall, the roofs with their Catalan vault and the offices. Two of the defining features of the complex are the helical brick chimney of the old steam engine and the semicircular aqueduct that carried water from the river to the turbine.
Since 1988, the Museu de la Vida Rural (Museum of Rural life, MVR) has been showing visitors the characteristics of traditional life in Catalonia, concentrating in particular on the peasantry. It is one of the leading centres of conservation and ethnological research in the country, with a varied collection which allows you to explore the history of the Catalan rural world through a modern and innovative museum project.
The permanent exhibition displays objects related to the peasantry, the arts and artisanal crafts: pieces that represent an authentic cultural basis of our society. The tour is organised by areas of work: those of agriculture, the trades of the village (priest, teacher, cafe owner, pastry chef, spinner, apothecary, barber ...) and the domestic.
The centre, integrated into the Network of Ethnological Museums, forms part of the Lluís Carulla Foundation and is housed in the ancestral home of the Carulla family in L'Espluga de Francolí. The old building was restored and remodelled to accommodate the collection of the Museu de la Vida Rural. In 2010 a new annex building was constructed and the whole of the museum was renovated to accommodate its exhibition scheme in order to facilitate understanding of the rural world from a contemporary perspective.
At the end of the Spanish Civil War, the Battle of the Ebro was the turning point of the conflict that led to the loss of Catalonia for the Republicans. An intense combat that took place at Matarranya, Ribera d'Ebre, Baix Ebre and Terra Alta. Nowadays, the combination of the historical spaces and interpretation centres form the Espais de la Batalla de l’Ebre (the Sites of the Battle of the Ebro), living testimony to one of the most tragic episodes of the recent history of the country.
The Old Town of Corbera d'Ebre remains a silent symbol of the barbarity of this conflict. Walking among the ruins of the streets and houses recalls the bombardments and the misery of its former inhabitants. From Els Barrancs, (the gullies), in Vilalba dels Arcs, one can see a line of trenches 700 metres long which were part of the Republican defence network. At Fatarella there is a military refuge and the walls of the Castle of Miravet which served as a refuge for national soldiers who manned the town.
The Sites of the Battle of the Ebro has a total of 19 historical locations and five Interpretation Centres: 115 days (Corbera d’Ebre), Soldiers in the trenches (Vilalba dels Arcs), Blood hospitals (Batea), Voices from the front (Pinell de Brai) and Internationals at the Ebro (La Fatarella).
