Almost thirty years have been needed for the modernist building at Carrer Monturiol, 6 in Figueres, where Salvador Dalí was born, to finally become a cultural facility that will reveal the most familiar and intimate facet of the artist. The mayor of Figueres, Jordi Masquef, announced yesterday, in front of the door of his birthplace, that on October 20 it will open to the public with a sensory experience project focused on the multifaceted figure of Dalí and the its relationship with the Empordà.
The drafting of the museum project was awarded to the UTE Transversal Varis Arquitectes, led by the architect Dani Freixes, who has also intervened in projects linked to the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation. The visit to the birthplace will last one hour and in each of the rooms on the three floors of the building – the work of the architect Josep Azemar – you can follow an immersive audiovisual projection with an audio guide in four languages. The visitor will hear the voice of Dalí himself, with fragments of his writings and interviews, and a narrator's voice that will explain his different facets, from the most personal (the difficult relationship with his father, the role of his sister as a model or the relationship with Gala) to his creations as an artist, writer, thinker, performer and passionate about science.
The building's mezzanine preserves some of the emblematic spaces of Dalí's childhood. The main thing is perhaps the kitchen, which is preserved almost intact. Dalí in his autobiography, Vida Secreta, said that as a child he was fascinated by this space, occupied only by women (the family had a sister, mother, grandmother, aunt and maids). And for this reason, if at the age of 5 she wanted to become Napoleon, at the age of six she dreamed of being a cook, as a woman. The parents' bedroom, the same one where Dalí was born on May 11, 1904, has also been preserved, with its hydraulic flooring and sienna-colored paintings on the walls. This is where they met, when they made the reform and they removed the different layers of paint, some drawings on the walls that will never be known if Dalí himself made them. And another momentous place was a gallery, which overlooked a garden, now gone, and from where you could hear the sardanas of the Rambla de Figueres. Anna Maria Dalí, the sister, said that it was here, scratching the paint on a tablet with a fork, that Dalí made his first drawings. The old toilet and the dining room are other spaces on this floor where the Dalí boy lived for his first eight years.
On the ground floor, a small room will be used to display, on a rotating basis, some of the artist's works, as an invitation to make the jump to the Dalí Theatre-Museum, where the largest collection of works of the genius from Emporda
As part of the inauguration, a documentary by the film director Alba Cros will be premiered with interviews with the professionals who have participated in the project. The weekend of October 21 and 22 will be open to the people of Figueres and then the equipment will be opened with an entrance fee of 12 euros (reduced for minors, pensioners and groups).
In 1994, the then mayor Marià Lorca (CiU), through his finance councilor Manel Toro, acquired the mezzanine of this house, where Dalí lived between 1904 and 1912, and the ground floor, where the father Dalí had his notary's office. In 2001 it was the mayor Joan Armangué (PSC) who bought the rest of the building. The mayors Santi Vila and Marta Felip (CiU) were able to leave it free of tenants and start the renovation works with the first public aid. Agnès Lladó (ERC) began the rehabilitation thanks to a Feder grant worth 1.4 million. And now the new mayor, Jordi Masquef (Junts), who is also vice-president of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, has set an inauguration date. Yesterday he wanted to emphasize, in front of the other mayors, that it is a city project in which efforts have been united without distinction of acronyms.
Eduard Bech, director of the Museu de l'Empordà and the birthplace, pointed out yesterday that the motto of this space is "Where it all began".
"What does the birthplace represent for Figueres?" asked the Councilor for Culture, Mariona Seguranyes. "We give the city's tribute to the artist who wanted his last great work, the Theatre-Museum, to be in Figueres".
