Palau de la Música Catalana: Domènech i Montaner, Tàpies and Music – Catalonia, Spain

EXPERIENCE

On the occasion of Tàpies Year, the Palau de la Música Catalana and the Tàpies Museum are organizing a combined visit to the two buildings designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner: firstly, the former Montaner i Simón publishing house (1880-1882), the current home of the Tàpies Museum, and secondly, the Palau de la Música Catalana (1905-1908). The visit will allow us to learn about the history of the two buildings, but also about the artist’s interest in music.

The Montaner y Simón publishing house was the first in the Eixample to integrate industrial typology and technology, combining exposed brick and iron, into the fabric of the urban center. Along with Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Vicens, it is one of the few remaining examples of a way of building that has now disappeared and exemplifies the transition from eclectic architecture of the 19th century to a new style, modernism.
The Palau de la Música Catalana is an architectural pearl of Catalan Modernism and the only concert hall declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It uses very advanced architectural solutions, with the use of new laminated profiles, a central metal structure stabilized by the buttress system and Gothic-inspired perimeter vaults, and with the application of large glass walls and the integration of all the applied arts: sculpture, mosaic, stained glass and wrought iron.

Music always accompanied Tàpies. For him it was a source of inspiration and an artistic model; and he emphasized its evocative power. In his texts and interviews, Tàpies expressed his admiration for different styles and musicians from different periods, from the baroque music of Johann Sebastian Bach or the romantic music of Richard Wagner (1813-1883) to 20th century composers such as Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951), John Cage (1912-1992) or Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007).

Discover the relationship between the two buildings of Domènech i Montaner, the passage from a 19th century architecture to the purest modernist style conveyed by the link with the music of Tàpies.

“Look, look thoroughly! And let yourself be fully carried away by everything that makes what the gaze offers us resonate within you, like someone who goes to a concert with a new suit and an open heart with the illusion of listening, of simply feeling in all its purity, without necessarily wanting the sounds of the piano or the orchestra to represent a certain landscape, or the portrait of a general, or a scene from history, as one would often wish only painting to do”.

Cavall Fort (Barcelona), no. 82 (January 1967).

HIGHLIGHTS

Domènechi i Muntaner, Tàpies and Music
Discover the relationship between Domènech i Montaner’s two buildings.
Palau de la Música Catalana: Architectural Pearl of Catalan Modernism

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