Poble Espanyol in Montjuïc. Its origins come from a journey around Spain

Abstract

Objective

The Poble Espanyol in Montjuïc is an enclosure where the architectural tradition of the towns of Spain is recreated through the appropriation of the typical elements of its architecture. It was built for the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona in 1929 and still survives as a distribution center for popular handicrafts, as well as a space for leisure and culture. To carry out the realization of the Poble’s project, a series of trips were made to Spain between 1927 and 1928 where hundreds of photographs, notes and travel sketches in notebooks were taken, which until today have remained hidden. The main topic of the present investigation is the demonstration that the trip was essential in the final result of the project.

Methodology

To achieve our goal, it has been made the collection, classifying and analysis of all the material that was collected during the trips, extracted from public and private funds, including the discovery of unpublished material: the travel notebooks.

Conclusions

As a result, it is concluded that Poble Espanyol would have been very different from now if those trips would had never been made, which gave it a complexity to overcome the generalized schematization of analogous projects.

Originality

The present work brings to light an unpublished material that allows us to deepen in the making off of the Poble Espanyol, to reveal how the final project was reached and its materialization.