The modernist building of the Font del Gat preserves the memory of the Olympics in Barcelona. The archive is open to the public and is not secret, but it is barely known. In a room of compact cabinets with a constant temperature and humidity, hundreds of thousands of documents and books from various sources make up an important legacy for scholars of the 1992 Games and other aspects of sport in general.
Raúl Vázquez and Lluís Sánchez are responsible for maintaining this fund, which is managed by the Joan Antoni Samaranch Center for Olympic and Sport Studies, belonging, together with the Olympic Museum, to the Barcelona Olympic Foundation. Currently, the archive has 20,000 cataloged documents and books, although some 200,000 have already been digitized.
The building in which it is located is the work of Josep Puig i Cadafalch and was built around 1925. At that time, the Font del Gat was already a very popular leisure place in Montjuïc where citizens went to have a snack. The building was born as a restaurant to celebrate family parties, such as baptisms, communions and weddings. Even today, part of the property is used as a restaurant.
The study center moved to Font del Gat in 2016, after having remained until then in a location next to gate 13 of the Stadium. The fund is the legacy of COOB-92, although it also preserves a good part of the personal library of Samaranch, former president of the IOC. It also has the transfer of documentary collections from the Real Moto Club de Catalunya, the Royal Spanish Winter Sports Federation and the Real Club Tenis Barcelona-1899.
Among the documentation are also contributions from sports promoters such as Ruben Peris, Isidre Rigau and Joan Manuel Surroca, as well as journalists Javier del Arco, Pedro Hernández and Ricardo Pastor, whose daughter donated the collection of the sports newspaper Dicen, where he previously wrote to become the pool player for El Periódico Pitoniso Pito.
The Dicen is one of the press collections that are part of the archive's sports newspaper library. In this section you will find, for example, the supplement that La Vanguardia dedicated to the Games. You can also consult all the memories of the Games held since 1896 in Athens.
The consultation can be made upon request to the email ceosamaranch@fbolimpica.es
