Accessibility | Page 6 | Cultural Heritage. Goverment of Catalonia.

Accessibility

Class: 
accessibility-reduced
T

As a result of the confiscations in the 19th century, a large part of the artistic heritage of the church was dispersed or privatised.With the Catalan Renaixença (Catalonia's cultural renaissance) efforts were made to recover and protect this entire legacy through initiatives such as the Museu de Lleida Diocesà i Comarcal, (Diocesan and Regional Museum of Lleida), founded in 1893, following the example of the Museu Episcopal de Vic. Today, the museum manages an important artistic legacy from the lands of the West and from the ancient Diocese of Lleida, which covers the period from prehistory to the modern age.

In 2007 the new branch was opened that set out the criteria of the site.There are certain outstanding exhibits that must not be missed during the tour of the museum. These include the head of a Roman satyr, altar frontals from the 13th century and sculptural fragments of the Seu Vella. From the Renaissance and Baroque, works by the painter Pere Nunyes, sculptures by Gabriel Joly and Damià Forment and several works by the painter Antonio Viladomat.

Highlights of the permanent collection include two unique pieces: the chess game of 10th -11th century by Sant Pere d’Àger and the Mare de Déu de Bellpuig de les Avellanes, one of the most important examples of Catalan Gothic heritage

T

The MHC is a museum designed to stimulate interest in the evolution of Catalan culture. In the Palau de Mar, one of the few conserved buildings of the old port of Barcelona, visitors follow a thought-provoking story that is divided into eight stages, starting in prehistoric times and finishing in the present day to, and taken from a social, economic, political and cultural point of view.

During the tour, you will find objects and documents, historical recreations and audiovisual and interactive scenes, which in an entertaining way, illustrate the history of this nation.

The visitor even gets the opportunity to climb onto the horse of a Lord in the war of the Middles Ages and hide in a trench of the Civil War.

T

The musical heritage of Barcelona and Catalonia is immense, and one of the institutions that has done the most to conserve, study and disseminate it has been the Museu de la Música de Barcelona. Located on the second floor of the Auditorium, it has a collection of 2,000 musical instruments from all over the world and 10,000 sound documents received from legacies and donations. It is considered one of the most important music collections in Spain.

The permanent exhibition invites visitors to experience the world of music and to understand that instruments are the living documents of our past, full of meaning and information related to our musical heritage. On display along the route of the museum are more than 500 pieces, explained through audiovisual, sound and textual resources.

The itinerary for the exhibition enables the visitor to learn about the instruments through the history of music: from ancient civilisations, progressing on to the birth and diffusion of polyphony, Baroque, Classicism and Romanticism, until reaching the new colours and industry of sound in the 19th century and the new styles and new technologies of the 20th century.

String instruments are the most widely represented in the museum, with an outstanding collection of guitars and keyboard instruments. The museum also focuses, deservedly, on wind instruments, as they reflect the important Catalan construction tradition and its use in South American and Asian cultures.

T

The Museu del Cinema de Girona was created from the exceptional collection of objects related to the world of pre-cinema and the films of Tomàs Mallol made up of 8,000 objects, 10,000 documents (photographs, posters, prints, drawings and paintings), 800 films and 700 books and magazines. Opened in 1998, it became the first museum of its kind in Spain and one of the few existing in Europe./p>

Entering the Museu del Cinema is to embark on a process of discovery. And the permanent exhibition has in the spectator their own point of view. This is not surprising. Throughout history, man has been fascinated by the moving image, from the primitive Chinese shadows until the early years of cinema.

This discovery process is divided into 10 sections plus an audiovisual, which serves as a prologue to the exhibition, and an epilogue that refers to amateur and children's cinema.The main discourse ends in the 1930s, with the arrival of the first televisions.

Thus the visitor gets an educational and entertaining understanding of the workings of magic lanterns, optical boxes, cameras obscura, chronophotography, gadgets for giving movement to the first images (phenakistoscopes, zoetropes, etc.…), projectors... The visitor even gets to be fooled by several optical illusions, which demonstrate that, since ancient times, the most important thing has always been to surprise

T

The first film exhibition in Catalonia took place on 5th May, 1895 in Barcelona. Almost a century later, in 1981, the Filmoteca de Catalunya, was born, dedicated to the conservation of film and audiovisual heritage and to the dissemination of film culture.

Today, the Filmoteca de Catalunya has a collection of more than 45,000 books, 20,000 graphic archives, 8,000 films, 5,000 sound tracks and 1,200 pieces of original film equipment. It is the result of the work of conservation, restoration, cataloguing, documentation and study of the film heritage of Catalonia carried out by this institution.

However, the best way to get to know the Filmoteca is through exhibitions, publications and film projections, nearly a thousand each year.

After acquiring a first projection room in the street Travessera de Gràcia and more than 20 years at the old Aquitània cinema in Sarrià, in 2012 the new headquarters in the district of El Raval were officially opened. This building, designed by Josep Lluís Mateo is the location for the main display and exhibition areas, a library and a bookstore.

The holdings and film collections are conserved in the other main site of the Filmoteca, the Centre de Conservació i Restauració, located in Terrassa, in the Parc Audiovisual de Catalunya.

T

The CaixaForum is located in the former fàbrica tèxtil Casaramona (Casaramona textile factory) in Montjuïc, which specialised in the manufacture of blankets and towels. This building designed by Josep Puig is an exceptional example of Catalan industrial "modernista" architecture of the early twentieth century. It comprises a set of single-story buildings, a horizontal construction to facilitate the transfer of goods through a system of internal streets that at the same time also served as a firewall.

The building was acquired by Obra Social "la Caixa" in 1963. In 2002, after a restoration and expansion project, it became a cultural centre for Barcelona. It offers social, cultural and educational programming that includes ongoing events such as lectures, film screenings, performances, concerts and family activities.

In addition, a quarter of the total 12,000 m2 building is occupied by ancient, modern and contemporary art exhibitions. It also has an outstanding collection of artistic and documentary art media.

T

Integrated into the Regional Network of the Museu de la Ciència i de la Tècnica de Catalunya, the Ecomuseu-Farinera at Castelló d'Empúries has, from 2004, explained the story of the men and women of the region dedicated to the cultivation of the wheat grain and the various uses of the flour.

The building of la Farinera offers a tour of the Catalan industrial flour heritage. The machines, tools and structures exhibited are testimony of an activity that has developed since medieval times: first in the old flour mill, and from the end of the 19th century to 2001, at the modern flour mill factory.

The visit to the Ecomuseum is completed with a route that follows, up to the Pont de la Mercè, part of the five kilometres of the Rec del Molí (mill irrigation channel). This hydraulic infrastructure drove water from the weir at Vilanova de la Muga to the flour mill, skirting around and supplying the orchards and fields. Upon arrival at the flour mill, the water turned a Francis turbine from 1905, which was responsible for generating the energy necessary for the operation of the factory.

T

In the midst of the woods of Castellar de N’Hug (Berguedà), the industrialist Eusebi Güell built the Asland factory, the first in Spain to produce portland cement, faster and more resilient than the conglomerates that had been used until then. This is an impressive modernista, building which, in its time, was a symbol of modernity and which today continues to amaze the visitors who come there.

The factory, owned by the Companyia General d’Asfalts i Pòrtland Asland, came into operation in 1904. The building was designed by the architect Rafael Guastavino, who built it in tiers to take advantage of the power of the waterfalls of the river Llobregat.

Due to the low temperatures in the area, the construction had to protect the whole space occupied by the machinery. To do this, an innovative architectural solution was chosen: the Catalan vault, flat brick vaults that were supported on a metal structure. The vault is what gives the façade of the factory its uniqueness.

Later, Rafael Guastavino exported this traditional technique to the United States, where he patented the Guastavino system. This system of self-supporting vaults with tiles and layers of mortar made a fortune and left its mark on architectural icons such as Grand Central Station, Carnegie Hall and the American Museum of Natural history, among others.

The industrial complex of Castellar de N'Hug operated until 1975, but in 2002 it reopened, becoming the Museu del Ciment, (Cement Museum), a space that allowed the history of the construction in our country to be reviewed. The museum, consisting of an interpretation centre and an external route that takes in the ruins of the factory, is affiliated to the Museu de la Ciència i la Tècnica de Catalunya (Museum of Science and Industry of Catalonia). With the visit, the importance of the complex at a time of strong growth of the industrial society is put into context.

T

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.

T

La Devesa in Girona is the largest urban park in the Principality. With more than 2,500 one hundred year old trees, the main lung of the city is a site dedicated to recreation where nature is manifested in all its splendour.

Long rows of plane trees fill the 40 hectares of the Park. Their distribution creates genuine avenues and botanic walks at the confluence of the rivers Güell, Ter and Onyar, to the west of the historic centre of the city. The trees of this green oasis are hybrids of American and Eastern species, most planted in 1850. The short distance between them has made them grow upright, reaching heights that are around 55-60 metres.

The site, in which all kinds of constructions have been built over the years, is arranged around several avenues. The entrance, from 1898, preserves one of the two twin lodges that welcomed visitors and in the Camp de Mart (the field of Mars) are the sports facilities built in 1942. Also within the Park of la Devesa are located shooting ranges and a model airplane field, the Felix Farró municipal football pitch, the facilities of the Girona Equestrian Society, the Fira de Girona area, the Girona Auditorium and the Congress Centre.