Modernist Movement

THE MODERNIST MOVEMENT MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE MODERNISMIN ARCHITECTURE AND THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS AND, CONSEQUENTLY, IN DESIGN, CAN BE CONSIDERED THE MOST IMPORTANT ARTISTIC MOVEMENT IN MODERN CATALAN CULTURE. THE MODERNIST MOVEMENT are not only important as architects but also for their extensive humanistic training. Although Gaudí had the same training, his circumstances were very different from those of the others. Our study of this architectural movement must be seen as a debate with the central idea of Gaudí, of whom we spoke in the odernism in architecture and the first issue of this magazine, as a count- sought with faith and courage and industrial arts and, consequently, erpoint to the other two architects, without renouncing the past. Oin design, can be considered the without taking this to mean that he was With this purely theoretical outlook, most important artistic movement in situated between Domknech and Puig i Domenech started his professional ca- modem Catalan culture. The movement Cadafalch. reer. He finished his training in 1873 gained such importance and strength that The controversy between Lluís Dome- and 8 years later work started on his first it cannot really be studied in the same nech i Montaner and Gaudí centred on project, the Editorial Montaner i Simón, light as its contemporary European the aspect of space, that between Puig i 255, Aragó street, Barcelona, completed movements such as Art Nouveau, Cadafalch and Gaudí on ornamentation. in 1884. Jugendstil, Sezession, Liberty o Floreale, In 1878, the same year Gaudí finished his This building, along with Gaudí's Casa to name just the best-known. training as an architect, Lluís Domenech Vicens (1880), Josep Fontseré's Víctor This new architecture, as a progressive i Montaner, a historian and architect who Balaguer museum and library (1882) in contribution to modernity, represented a is fundamental to the understanding of Vilanova i la Geltrú, the Academia de reaction to the abuse, or simply over-use, the beginnings of Modernism in Catalo- Ciencies (1883) by Domenech i Estepa of eclecticism as a repertory of historical nia, wrote in Renaixenca: "In search of a and finally Josep Vilaseca's Les Zndús- styles, evident in the neo-Gothic, Arab, national architecture", a theoretical arti- tries d'Art Francesc Vida1 (1884) are the Mudejar or stodgy Romanesque archi- cle which looked at the need to redirect examples which, according to A. Cirici, tecture of our most prestigious masters. Catalan architecture along the lines men- break with the past and form the stem of In Catalonia, this change coincided with tioned above. The controversy and the the "new architecture". an ideological attitude linked to the social impact which this article caused were not Retrieving the thread of our article, we reality of the moment. The search for a reflected in architecture until ten years have to go back to the debate between style which could be seen as a new spirit later. Gaudí and Domknech regarding the and a national culture, as well as the need "The final word in any conversation question of space. Domenech built a to retrieve the language, were some of about architecture, the principal question number of important buildings of al1 the factors in the struggle for the recogni- in any critiqye, centres inevitably on one kinds: from private houses, theatres, ho- tion of Catalonia in Europe. idea, that of a modern, national archi- tels, blocks of flats and hospitals to others We must also define the geographical tecture." of less importance. area in which the movement was most These are the opening words of In al1 of them, and especially in the Edi- productive. Obviously, we have to look Domenech's article, which, with its wide torial Montaner i Simón (1884), the Cafe- to Barcelona as being the centre of selection of examples to explain the lead- Restaurant de I'Exposició Internacional Modernism, though we should not forget ing architectural monuments of the de Barcelona (1888), the Hospital de Sant other places, on the coast as well as world, shows the necessity of resorting to Pazi (1902-1910-1928) and the Palau de la inland, where the movement also had an different styles "so that we can learn to Música Catalana (1905-1908), there is the influence. Barcelona produced the apply openly the forms that new experi- wish to rationalize the concept of space, movement's three most significant archi- ences and needs impose on us, enriching absent from Gaudí's work of the same tects: Lluís Domenech i Montaner them and giving them expression with the time. The complexity and the difficulty of (1850-1923), Antoni Gaudí i Cornet ornamental treasures offered to us by spatial perception in Gaudí's work con- (1852-1926), and Josep Puig i Cadafalch monuments of al1 eras and by nature". trasts with the clarity and transparity of (1867-1956). The first and last of these Domenech asks that the present be Domenech's work. THE MODERNIST MOVEMENT Of the buildings referred to, two were in the already existing urban area (Mon- taner i Simón and Palau de la Música) while the Caf2-Restaurant is an example of an isolated building whose volumetric connotations are bold enough to define, structure and shape an open space in close relation with the old part of the cíty. The Hospital de Sant Pau has to be looked at from the point of view of town- planning more than anything else, because of its situation within Cerda's grid-system. Given the priorities of sunlight and health for a group of buildings, Domknech chose to face due south towards Gaudí's Sagrada Familia, perfectly situated within the grid-system, and at that time consisting only of the towers of the facade of the nativity. Ac- cording to Oriol Bohigas, there is the same relationship between Gaudí's and Domknech's uses of space as there is be- THE MODERNIST MOVEMENT THE M0DERNIS.T MOVEMENT we see that the work of Puig i Cadafalch is always supported by a comfortable, settled attitude towards any suggestion of something new. Thus the Casa Garí (1898) in Argentona, the Casa Amatller tween Le Corbusier's from the Ville Sa- (1898-1900) in the Passeig de Gracia and interpreted within Modernism, Noucen- voie to Chandigard, based on accidented next door to Gaudí's Casa Batlló, the tisme and the doubtful moments after the and unreferable succession, and the pure Casa Terrades or Casa de les Punxes Civil War, keeping outside Rationalism, prisms of Mies Van der Rohe -from the (1903-1905) in Avinguda Diagonal and another historic moment of Catalan Barcelona pavilion to the Crown Hall- the Fabrica Casarramona (1911) in Mkxic architecture. where the accidents always allow a con- street (at present a National Police Finally we must mention an exceptional stant reference to volumetric and spatial barracks and in very bad state of repair) Barcelona facade called the Mancana de unity . -al1 these in Barcelona- are the most la Discordia, in the Passeig de Gracia be- Josep Puig i Cadafalch was to be the oth- representative examples of Puig's work tween the streets of Aragó and Consell er representative figure of this movement from the golden age of Catalan Moder- de Cent, where we find work by the three in Catalonia: researcher, historian, nist architecture. They are al1 examples architects discussed. Domenech's Casa archeologist, politician and architect. of good sense, good construction and Lleó i Morera, on the corner of Consell As has been seen, Gaudí and Puig coin- good taste and for that reason im- de Cent, Puig's Casa Amatller and Gau- cide in formal aspects such as decoration, mediately acceptable to the Catalan dí's reformation of the Casa Batlló. since it is in this field that their archi- bourgeoisie. Domknech and Puig built two new blocks tecture is most attractive and transcends Puig sought a line whose ornamentation of flats free of any limitation that might the intrinsic qualities of the architectonic was modest both in size and colouring, have conditioned their use of space or concept itself. with plain mouldings and, as has already design. Gaudí was entrusted with a refor- Puig i Cadafalch, considered the "archi- been remarked, a geometrical volume mation and transformed an unobtrusive tect of collective forms seen as signs of a based on comprehensible and accepted block of flats into an explosive controver- shared reality", wrote in 1934: "archi- figures. The only exception to this last sy. He modified and added floors,, joined tecture is not drawing: it is form as a geo- concept which is to be found in his work interior wells to make them into usable metrical and mechanical consequence". is in Argentona, where the job of conver- spaces and illuminated the facade's new He brings to mind Viollet-le-Duc with a ting three village houses into one pro- surface like a miniature. sentence which was to be the slogan of vides a courageous and enriching result, This then, is the only place in the city many architects of the time: "architecto- perhaps because it was to be his own holi- where we find the three artists studied in nic beauty is born of the logic of forms" day-home. On the other hand, we must this article side by side: Domknech i and for Gaudí this was to be the absolute bear in mind that Puig died in 1956 and Montaner, historian and politician, Puig i guide to his art. that his work was the object of changes Cadafalch, researcher and archeologist, Thinking strictly about these definitions, that were important enough for it to be and Antoni Gaudí, architect.

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