Josep Lluís Sert and Josep Torres Clavé, founders of Gatcpac, signed two key works of Catalan rationalism with Joan Baptista Subirana: the Casa Bloc and Dr. Saye's Tuberculosis Dispensary, both in Barcelona and well known. They also signed a work in Gavà, which has survived for years, mistreated and mutilated, and thanks to the rehabilitation carried out by Meritxell Inaraja, it now comes back to life and looks like it did in its first brief days of splendor. I am referring to the Unió de Cooperants, a building where the architectural avant-garde and the –in its day– political and social avant-garde of the authors pulsate and mutually fertilize each other.
This work was designed in 1934, to provide a cooperative of farmers and workers with a store, a cafeteria and some warehouses. In other words, a meeting space and, also, a relationship with Gavà. In July 1936 it was already finished, reflecting the teachings of the Bauhaus, also of Le Corbusier. But the outbreak of the Civil War prevented it from being inaugurated. At the end of the contest, the victors seized it and located in it the headquarters of the Vertical Union and the Women's Section, initiating a rosary of disfigurements.
Later, the cooperative members returned to it, but they accumulated debts and finally ended up in municipal hands, which successively dedicated it to the headquarters of the Patronage of Culture, headquarters of Radio Gavà, the Urban Guard, the National Police, etc. With each of these tenants, the work underwent new and, in general, impoverishing transformations.
Seeing this work five years ago, when Inaraja won the contest to rehabilitate it, was sad. The trail of its authors was blurred. The exterior spaces of the first floor had been boarded up, the large window on the right side had disappeared, and the bright colors were inappreciable. That, on the facade. Inside, the spaces had been compartmentalized in any way and the floor plan, section and rear facade had been altered.
With good judgment, Inaraja has recovered the original as far as possible and has taken some liberty where its traces seemed indecipherable. In this way, it has achieved diaphanous spaces that can be adapted to new functions on the ground floor and first floor (the old basement is conditioned by the structure of pillars and arches), and has opened an atrium, in the last bay, which connects the three floors and brings light to the bottom. Or it has organized the circulations from the street, starting with the original access, and continuing with a new staircase, since the original, curved, very period and well preserved, was now useless for practical purposes because it fell outside the regulations. Or has subtly reinforced the original structure, as well as adding a required elevator.
The voice of Gatpac, silenced by the war and the Franco regime, is now being heard again, vigorously, in Gavà: the Unió de Cooperadors has recovered its strength and its red and white colours, after eighty years of oblivion and servitude. Here is some very good news. Now the only thing missing is for the City Council to give it use and content as soon as possible.
