Fundació Antoni Tàpies: A Cloud on a Printing House
Why is it significant?
Raise your eyes to the roof of this red brick building and you will see what looks like a gigantic tangle of wire, as if a storm had dropped a bird's nest the size of a bus.
Key Facts
| Place | Fundació Antoni Tàpies: A Cloud on a Printing House |
|---|---|
| Address | Carrer d'Aragó 255, 08007 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.39160, 2.16370 |
| Part of Walk | The Block of Discord: Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia and the Modernista Rivalry |
| Generated | Generated |
Raise your eyes to the roof of this red brick building and you will see what looks like a gigantic tangle of wire, as if a storm had dropped a bird's nest the size of a bus. It is a sculpture by Antoni Tàpies called Cloud and Chair, and if you search inside the knot you can make out the shape of a chair floating in the cloud.
The building beneath it is older than every house you have just seen. It was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the architect of Casa Lleó Morera, for the publishing house Montaner i Simon, founded by Ramon de Montaner and Francesc Simon, and it was built in the early 1880s. That makes it one of the very first buildings of Catalan Modernisme. Notice the materials: exposed brick and visible iron, the language of factories, worn proudly on a bourgeois street.
It was a working machine. Montaner i Simon printed lavish illustrated books and great encyclopaedias, and presses, paper and ink filled these halls. A few years earlier, in 1878, the young Domènech had published an essay called In Search of a National Architecture, asking what a modern Catalan building should look like. This was one of his first answers: rational, modern, and unashamed of its materials.
A century later the building found a second life. Antoni Tàpies, born in Barcelona in 1923 and one of the great painters of post-war Europe, set up a foundation here, which opened to the public in 1990. Tàpies loved humble materials: sand, straw, rags, cardboard, the scratches and stains of old walls. Putting him in a brick house built for printing presses was a perfect match, and the wire cloud on the roof was his way of signing the façade.
Most people hurry past without looking up, eyes fixed on the famous neighbours round the corner. You have done better. Now go back to Passeig de Gràcia, cross to the far side, and carry on up the avenue. Keep looking down at your feet as you go.