A walk through Catalan modernism

Modernism is a cultural movement that occurred in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite the fact that this cultural movement affects all manifestations of art and thought, it is in architecture and the plastic arts where it is shown with full meaning

In Catalonia it developed throughout the 1930s, between 1885 and 1920, and it has dimensions and a special personality that means that we can find manifestations throughout the Catalan geography and in very diverse buildings: factories, agricultural cooperatives, athenaeums, markets and homes.

The Catalan bourgeoisie is a fundamental sector of society to understand the development of this trend. She feels Catalan and is cultured and sensitive to art, that is why cases of patronage by the Catalan high bourgeoisie arise, an example is that of Count Güell with Antoni Gaudí. This bourgeoisie sees in this new architecture the way to satisfy their desire for modernization, to express their Catalan identity, and to demonstrate their wealth and distinction.

Among the more than a hundred architects who built Catalan modernist buildings, three stand out above all: Antoni Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Many of his works have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.