Barcelona inaugurates its 1st Modernist Tour

On Saturday the 18th of April, the cultural organisation Casas Singulares (Singular Residences) and the Barcelona Modernist Museum have organised the first Modernist Tour, in which participants, who are invited to dress in period costume, will take in the famous façades along what is known as the “Island, or Block, of Discord”, a section of the Passeig de Gràcia so named for the rivalry between the Modernist architects whose projects in the area included spectacular façades.
The tour is designed to emulate a typical stroll taken by the bourgeoisie of the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, when the city was on the path towards industrialisation. At the time, rich Barcelona residents were prone to commissioning the construction of emblematic buildings to the Modernist architects of the period. Between 1989 and 1900, the chocolate baron Antoni Amatller commissioned architect Puig i Cadafalch the remodelling of an existing building subsequently to be known as Casa Amatller. In 1905, Lluís Domènech i Muntaner commissioned the reform of the Casa Lleó i Morera, originally built in 1864, and the Casa Milà, the last residential building projected by Gaudí, was commissioned by Pere Milà, a young urban developer who had married Rosario Segimón, the rich widow of an ‘Indiano’ (someone who made their fortune in the Americas). La Pedrera is the name coined by the Barcelona residents when they saw the finished result in 1910.
The tour will finish up in the Modernist Museum, where participants will be treated to a ‘chocolatada’.


1st Modernist Tour (Paseo Modernista)
When: 18th of April
Tickets:
Where: Museu del Modernisme de Barcelona
More information is available here