Photographs from the 2004 Study Tour - Catalonia, Spain

Copyright © 2004 by each photographer and historical text by James Douet, from the SIA Study Tour Guide, Catalonia Spring 2004

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Clot del Moro, ruins of Modernista cement works.

The first cement works with modern rotary kilns in Catalonia was built in this inaccessible valley between 1901 and 1904 by Eusebi Güell, assisted by American technicians from Allis Chalmers and the Pelton Water Wheel company. Its extraordinary design, rendered surreal by decay since closing and being stripped of its plant in the 1970s, makes it a unique industrial site. The workforce lived in the nearby village of la Poble de Lillet. The little colony includes houses for the technicians and staff, chapel, a Civil Guard detachment to protect the dynamite of the quarry, and a house closely influenced by Gaud. All the machinery including the three AC kilns was moved by 13 Pelton wheels of different size, the water coming via a 4.8km tube from the source of the river Llobregate. After the first four frustrating years, the company mastered the technology and technique of making cement, and in 1908 the works was replanned and extended with the purchase of two new kilns, three times the length of the original ones.

Photographs by Patrick Martin

Capellades medieval paper mill

The Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades is an C18 water-driven paper mill formerly known as the Molí de la Vila or Town Mill. Capellades became one of the main centers of paper production in Spain during the C18 and C19, its paper known internationally. Sixteen mills were concentrated along a canalized stream through the village, the other main advantage of which was proximity to the Camí Ral, the ‘royal’ route linking medieval Catalonia with Aragon and Castile which brought rags to the mills and carried the paper to the interior of Spain or the port of Barcelona. The museum was formed in 1958, and also has an international reputation both for its hand-mad products and as a centre for the study of paper. The special typology of the paper mill was widely developed in Catalonia. Based clearly on the masia, the traditional Catalan farmhouse, paper was made in the vaulted basement where the rags were first selected and chopped, beaten to pulp in vats by batteries of trip hammers operated by the water wheel, and then laid by hand into sheets of paper and pressed to squeeze out the excess water. The ground floor had a packing room, store and kitchen, and the owner occupied the first floor, distinguished by its characteristic balcony. The attic floor with all the windows was a drying loft in which the damp sheets of paper were hung till dry.

Photographs by Patrick Martin.

Photographs above by Marc Greuther

Born iron-framed market.

The new Central Market was built in 1876 according to the design of Josep Fontseré, and is the most important example in Catalonia of iron construction and architecture. It was the first of a series of iron markets distributed around the new neighborhoods that were being laid out in the Eixample, the grid-plan extension beyond the city walls that was planned by Ildefons Cerdà and approved in 1860. The rectangular market covers an area of 8,000m2, with a central octagonal rotunda 31m high. La Maquinista Terrestre i Maritima was responsible for the engineering and production of the columns and other ironwork. The market closed in 1979, and work had begun a couple of years ago on reconditioning it as the city library when archaeologists uncovered extensive remains of the town that had been flattened in 1714 by Philip V, after the siege of Barcelona, to build the Ciutadella fortress. (September 11th was already a significant date in Catalonia as it was the day the defenders surrendered, and is memorialized as the country’s national day). The library project was frozen, and after a virulent debate it was agreed to conserve the excavations and turn the market into a new museum.

Photograph by Susan Martin

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