Barcelona | Page 4 | Cultural Heritage. Goverment of Catalonia.

Barcelona

English translation unavailable for Exposició Centenari de la Ciutat.
English translation unavailable for 100 anys del Centre Atlètic Laietània.
English translation unavailable for Visita guiada a l’exposició ‘El poble gitano de Catalunya: història i cultura’.

Granollers retains the traces of its past

The heritage of the Vallés Oriental capital is open to visitors allowing them to discover the city’s past first hand through various facilities that also explain how society evolved in Granollers. This said, the first mandatory stop is the Granollers Museum. Although its origin dates back to 1932, the building that currently houses the museum is from 1976, when, following various different stages, it reopened to the public to exhibit its extensive collection, made up of archaeology, art, ethnography and numismatics.
 
To find out about the city’s medieval past, the archaeological site of Adobería de los Ginebreda is a good starting point. This truly unique space allows you to do so by exploring a significant section of the wall that surrounded the town, the traces of the remaining towers and the tannery itself, the only one preserved in the city of the dozen that have been recorded. What’s more, it’s the best preserved one in Catalonia.
 
A city’s heritage can also be explained through nature. This is made possible at the Museum of Natural Sciences of Granollers, known as the Tela after the name of the modernist tower bult in 1912 that houses a part of it. It has several spaces, including the Planetarium, which allows you to decipher the night sky. The Antonio Jonch Cuspinera gardens are a highlight at the Museum, where you can see different plant species found in the Vallés. 
 
You can discover Granollers’ textile past at La Térmica, which houses part of the history of the cotton industry in the Vallés. Built in 1951, it was the location of the old Roca Umbert factory  —now a space for artistic creation— which transformed and distributed the energy to convert cotton into clothing. Now, thanks to audiovisual pieces, you can discover the original elements and pieces that were part of La Térmica during the fifties.
 
You can visit these spaces and many others by following several itineraries that run through the municipality and may even start at the city’s iconic Renaissance Porxada. For example, the modernist and noucentista route, which visits the buildings from these periods, or that of bombed Granollers, which shows some of the emblematic sites affected by these episodes and Can Jonch, Cultural Centre for Peace. 


An excursion proposed in collaboration with the magazine Descobrir.
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Barcelona through the works of Subirachs

Josep Maria Subirachs, an emblematic —and pioneering— Catalan avant-garde sculptor from the second half of the 20TH century, began his contribution to public sculpture between 1957 and 1960. His piece 'Forma 212' (1957), on the Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron, was his first abstract sculpture to be placed in a street in Barcelona. 'The following year', his Las Tablas de la Ley relief appeared on the façade of the UB Law Faculty –created in collaboration with the ceramicist Antoni Cumella–, and in 1960, he sparked controversy with another abstract piece located in the Barceloneta neighbourhood: 'Evocación marinera'.
 
Later, without abandoning abstract plastic expression, Subirachs started to incorporate figurative elements, such as the submarine in the 'Monumento a Narcís Monturiol' (1963), made of concrete and copper and located at the Diagonal/Provença/Girona intersection, or the negative relief La medida del espacio-tiempo (1967), in cubic blocks superimposed to form a female nude, on Via Augusta/Marià Cubí.
 
Subirachs is also behind the concrete frieze which references the city’s history linking the old Barcelona City Hall building with the Novíssim building in Plaza de Sant Miquel, and the façade of the now-disappeared 'Tele/eXprés' (1966) newspaper building, on Calle Aragó, 390. Due to its emblematic location, 'Puerta de san Jorge' (1975) is a definite highlight, which connects the Palacio del Virrey with the Salón del Tinell, and the 'Monumento al presidente Francesc Macià' (1991) in Plaza de Catalunya is also well worth a mention. 
 
In 1986, Subirachs was commissioned to create the sculptural groups of the Sagrada Familia’s Passion façade, a work of extraordinary proportions that kept him busy him for twenty years. He composed a large altarpiece made up of figures and high reliefs carved in stone along with four bronze doors that combine different representative and symbolic elements, through which he managed to convey the theme of the Passion of Christ with eloquent expressiveness.
 
The Espai Subirachs is in the Poblenou district and makes part of the multifaceted artist’s legacy available to the public. Through over a hundred different works, representative of the different stages of his career, you can discover an artist who, as well as being a sculptor, was also a prolific creator of drawings, paintings, engravings, lithographs, posters, jewellery, medals, tapestries and stage designs.

A proposal brought to you in collaboration with Descobrir magazine.

A walk through the historical heritage of Mataró

Did you know that Mataró is a city with a great wealth of modernist heritage? Here, you’ll find factories, markets, shops, houses and much more. We suggest discovering the legacy of architect, historian and local politician Josep Puig i Cadafalch, with works such the Rengle market, the La Confianza shop, or the Coll i Regàs house. What’s more, you simply must see Antoni Gaudí’s first building, the only trace left of the Mataró Workers’ Cooperative factory, known as the Nau Gaudí.
 
Another must-see on your getaway to the capital of the Maresme is the prison, by Elies Rogent i Amat. It’s a building of great importance in the history of contemporary prison architecture, a construction which is the first application example of the panopticon model in the state. In Mataró, you will also find an authentic jewel of the Catalan baroque: the Dolors set of paintings, an extraordinary collection that is housed in the Basilica of Santa Maria. It’s one of the most important examples of the Catalan baroque, work of Antoni Viladomat i Manalt, considered the best Catalan painter of the first half of the 18th century. This year, a historic intervention has been carried out to restore the famous bells of Santa Maria in an aim to preserve the manual chiming of the bells, which has been named Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
 
On the outskirts of the city, at the eastern end of Camí Ral, in the Havana district, you’ll find an authentic treasure: a small temple of maritime tradition, built in the 17th century. It’s the hermitage of Sant Simó, where the Coca de Mataró was located, a maritime ex-voto of great artistic value that is now kept in the Maritiem Museum Prins Hendrik in Rotterdam.
 
Finally, you simply can’t leave Mataró without visiting the archaeological site of the Llauder tower, where you can see the remains of the stately buildings of a Roman villa built at the end of the 1st century B.C. which belonged to the territory of the Roman city of Iluro (now Mataró). It’s also an important archaeological site which has been declared a Cultural Asset of National Interest.
 
To find out more about the history of Mataró, visit the museum of Can Serra, which has various permanent and temporary exhibitions related to the city’s past, or Ca l’Arenes, where you can delve deeper into the municipality’s artistic activity.
English translation unavailable for Exposició: La memòria d'un país.
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