We live in an age of abundance and communicative excess in which awards are not an exception, but rather one of the consequences. This hodgepodge of awards, which in many cases is the result of divisions between groups of architects —and sometimes simply a business— has its origin, its primary source, in the city of Barcelona: the annual competition for buildings and establishments established by Barcelona City Council in 1899, which was undoubtedly the source of much discord. One hundred and twenty-five years have passed, and we can safely say that nothing has changed in this regard.
The exceptional nature of being the first and only award for buildings and establishments —a melting pot of a golden age for Catalan architecture— gave it great importance and prestige in early 20th-century Barcelona society. This path, which the FAD Awards sought to follow after the Spanish Civil War with the impetus of Oriol Bohigas, is now almost exclusively an event of interest to professionals. Fragmentation has put a damper on it.
However, we reviewed large buildings, as well as surprises and confirmations: Antoni Gaudí, the first recipient of the award for Casa Calvet —one of his lesser-known works in Barcelona today— never received any distinction; the world of industry, a great patron of Catalan Art Nouveau architecture, highlighted the factory as worthy of mention with the Casaramona industrial complex; the same award that had placed Catalan Art Nouveau at the top was also responsible for sacrificing it at the hands of the new era of Noucentista hygienism. It would be other new times, those of the modern movement, that would end up shaking everything up and putting an end to the awards themselves. However, the competition still had time to award a mention to Antoni Puig Gairalt‘s Myrurgia factory, halfway between Art Deco and rationalism, as a farewell and an announcement, and also to embrace the new trends. The Second Republic was knocking at the door.
The selection for this journey through time, except for the Myrurgia factory as a symbolic finale, shows only the buildings that were awarded first prize. Unfortunately, of the category of establishments, only the Fonda Espanya remains, as the rest, due to their ephemeral nature, have disappeared. The itinerary will reveal omissions, changes in landscape and, above all, will show an important part of the best architecture of that period.
