These days the rehabilitation of the singular crypt that preserves more than 700 remains of the soldiers who died during the wars in Cuba and the Philippines in the Les Corts cemetery has begun. The intervention will serve to recover "the original image of the mausoleum, improving its operation and durability," according to municipal sources. In this sense, the works are now focused on the roof of the funerary monument to better waterproof it and avoid humidity problems inside.
The action, a joint request of the district of Les Corts and Cementiris de Barcelona, will also serve to thoroughly clean the pantheon as well as the restoration of different elements such as the doors and the iron railing, the frames and corners of the niches or the replacement of detached stones, coming from Montjuïc.
The works are expected to last about four months at a cost of 93,233.70 euros, financed for the most part with the tourist tax. The mausoleum, the work of the municipal chief architect Pere Falqués, paid for it and was inaugurated by the Town Hall in 1904.
At the time of its inauguration, there were 722 niches but later they increased as there were more deceased soldiers. In fact, the exact number is uncertain. There are 725 plaques with the names and surnames of the people buried, although between the numbers 726 and 732 there is a written x, something that could be a symbolic reference to the unknown soldier because the identity of some is not known.
Along with this restoration to recover historical memory, the City Council has published a book and organized an exhibition and a talk at the Les Corts district headquarters recalling the history of the pantheon based on research by historian Daniel Venteo. For example, it is explained that those who could afford to pay two thousand pesetas in cash had the option of redeeming themselves from compulsory military service.
On the other hand, it is detailed that at first the monument was more modest with an obelisk based on a project by the auxiliary architect of the City Hall cemetery section Juli Maria Fossas, but the chief architect Falqués eventually resized it to turn it into a the mausoleum that has survived to this day. “What at the beginning would surely have been a mass grave was transformed into a tribute and singular recognition of the victims,” Venteo points out. As a curiosity, the budget for the first project would have cost 1,952 pesetas, almost the same amount that one of the people buried would have been able to pay to avoid going to war.
