Francesc Mitjans’ most widely recognised area of mastery —and the problem to which he devoted the greatest amount of time— was undoubtedly multi-family housing. Admitted to the professional association in 1940, though officially qualified in 1942, Mitjans, who had been a student member of GATCPAC during the Republican period, had already built the Casa Casabó in Sitges in 1934. From then on, and up to the project of the Camp Nou —his first major work— Mitjans would construct a large number of housing buildings, mainly within the consolidated urban fabric of Barcelona.
The leap to a project of enormous dimensions such as the Camp Nou came with the appointment of his cousin, Francesc Miró Sans, as president of FC Barcelona. The two even shared a stairwell in the residential building on Carrer d’Amigó that Mitjans had designed several years earlier. As the architect himself acknowledged, it was this circumstance, and no other, that enabled him to gain access to a commission of such magnitude. The project, which he shared with Josep Soteras and Lorenzo García-Barbón —municipal architects and therefore aligned with the regime— was seen as a gateway to future works on an urban scale. Although Mitjans would claim in some interviews that 90% of the authorship of the stadium was his, it should not be forgotten that both Soteras and García-Barbón had already completed notable works, such as the Municipal Sports Palace, the altar for the Eucharistic Congress, or the extension of the RCD Espanyol stadium. The stadium did not come alone: on the former grounds of the Les Corts stadium, Mitjans would build two large linear blocks several years later.
After the Camp Nou came his involvement in the Escorial housing block, one of the first developments to follow the precepts of the modern movement during the period of the dictatorship. Along the same lines, and just a few metres away but two decades later, the planning of the Europa block—with the construction of its slab tower—as well as the Roma 2000 complex, would further develop this type of urban operation, a form of urban development that would gradually disappear with the arrival of democracy.
Among the works mentioned, the most recognisable in the city’s skyline is the Banco Atlántico Tower, an elegant replica of the Pirelli Tower in Milan designed by Gio Ponti, which has since become a symbol of financial power at the intersection of Avinguda Diagonal and Carrer de Balmes. Although it has been remodelled on numerous occasions in recent decades, it has fared better than the Estel Building, a setback slab building now standing empty, which has changed hands amid uncertainty and seems finally destined to house offices that bear little resemblance to the intentions of the original project. It remains to be seen how the new Camp Nou will ultimately turn out, after having been modified so many times since its inauguration and subjected to countless redevelopment proposals.
