Barcelona City Council recently initially approved expanding its heritage catalogs to incorporate several buildings that until now were not protected and raising their category by as many. The proposed buildings are located in the districts of Ciutat Vella, Eixample, Les Corts, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi and Sant Andreu.
Specifically, eight city estates are candidates to join the special plan for the protection of the historical-artistic architectural heritage of the city of Barcelona. One of those that had come to light was the former Unió Cooperativista Barcelonesa de l'Eixample after a group of residents began a campaign to prevent its demolition upon learning of the agreement between the Church, owner of the building, and the Hospital Clínic to create a center of health research. This property, located on Comte d'Urgell street, is a testimony of the cooperative movement of the first third of the 20th century in Catalonia. In this case, it is planned to grant it protection C, which requires the maintenance and restoration of the main façade and the recovery of the ground floor, as well as the conservation of the old theater, its stairs and decorative elements of interest, such as railings, carpentry or roofs.
With greater protection, with a grade B, in which demolition is not possible and maintenance is required, the modernist house Dolors Alesan de Gibert on Paseo Sant Joan, a building by the architect Enric Fatjó i Torras finished in 1904, and the Francesc Bosch i Mas del Raval house, an estate of which the sgraffito on its façade stands out, as it is considered one of the most successful examples of decoration applied to residential architecture buildings during the second half of the 18th century, as recorded in the new patrimonial tab.
To category C, which also does not allow demolition, will be added the house of Manuel Camps in the Gothic Quarter designed by Pere Falqués in 1882, the Maria Montaner house on Calle Balmes - residential building by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner commissioned by his madre – and the majestic Girona tower, ordered to be built by the banker Manel Girona from 1857 as a summer house, today the headquarters of the rectorate of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the MareNostrum supercomputer.
The Paula Canalejo modernist house in the Putxet i el Farró neighborhood, by the architect Adolf Ruiz Casamitjana, and Villa Piedad, one of the oldest houses in Trinitat Vella, will also enjoy a C level after the neighbors raised the alarm. In the first case they denounced partial demolitions and in the second they warned of renovations and that it was for sale, something that propitiated an agreement between the municipal government and ERC in the framework of the approval of the 2023 budget to allocate 190,000 euros to acquire in a future Villa Piedad.
On the other hand, four new protections are added within the Provincial Maternity House in the district of Les Corts. These are the Cambó (level C), Hèlios (level C) pavilions and the one initially used as a coal deposit and soap factory (level B), as well as their gardens (level C). They are not the only novelties. Ten buildings are candidates for increasing their level D to C: Casal Bascònia, the old Sant Andreu fire station, the Madurell, Niño, and Pagès houses, two bourgeois houses (one at 19 Llenguadoc street and another at 35 Sòcrates). and the neighboring buildings of Ignasi Iglesias, 24 and Llenguadoc, 61 and 104. In addition, the cataloging will be increased from D to C of 457 buildings in the old town of Sant Andreu and the little houses in Passage Sòcrates, also located in this district barcelonian.
The modifications initially approved must be ratified by the municipal plenary session and are part of the actions of the Barcelona government measure. Ciutat de patrimoni , with which it is planned to carry out revisions of the catalogs to preserve those elements that until now were not sufficiently protected. The deputy mayor for Urban Planning of the City Council, Janet Sanz, assures that the heritage catalog is being opened to incorporate "a new conception" that takes into account "values linked to the popular, worker and urban heritage of the city" and so that "it stops to be a closed instrument that responds only to a monumental vision of the city”. “This update of the heritage catalog is a step forward to protect the essence and memory of Barcelona”, she adds.
