This itinerary provides a brief overview of the long career of Josep Maria Perica i Morros, from his first work, the Sagrat Cor Church in 1906 —designed before he finished his degree and which he himself described as ‘poorly digested Romanesque’— to the Caixa de Pensions building in Torelló, from 1958, which belongs to the group of the architect’s later works.
Halfway along the route, we will see the fence and gate of the Vinyoles cemetery, an example of the funerary architecture that is always present in Pericas’ work. Next, we come to the Torre Nova de la Coromina and its gardens (1919-1925), which the architect called the Domus of the 20th century. He designed and built it to spend long summers with his family, and it also housed his professional office on the second floor. I always remember him there inside. A lover of archaeology and scholarly studies of Romanesque and medieval architecture, he drew up hundreds of plans and wrote more than 6,000 files that were to be used in the most ambitious project of his life: the study of the castles and medieval fortified houses of Osona. Unfortunately, almost everything was destroyed when his house was seized as a result of the coup d’état in 1936.
In the renovation of the Ordeix de Vinyoles de Orís country house (1941), you will see a tower identical to that of Torre Nova. This was done at the request of the owner, who was enamoured with the Pericas House, which he could see from the other side of the River Ter.
Very close to Torre Nova de la Coromina is the rock of the Virgin of Montserrat (1914). This was my favourite place to go for a snack when I was a child and spent my summers at my grandparents’ house, and I remember that I liked to read the text ‘Montserrat, guide us to Heaven’ engraved on the stone lintel above the wrought-iron gate.
The second monument is the Tres Creus, three monumental crosses commemorating the Constantinian festivities, erected in 1913 on top of a hill with a 360-degree view over the plain of Vic. The initials Alpha and Omega — the beginning and end of all things — hang above the central cross. Both the stone of the Virgin of Montserrat and the so-called “Tres Creus” were dynamited during the Spanish Civil War and later rebuilt by the architect, who recovered their original pieces, but with the columns of the Three Crosses significantly lower.
The hill of the Tres Creus is accessed by a path that coincides with the Way of the Cross that leaves the sanctuary of Rocaprevera (1923), erected by popular devotion in the “Pericas style”, as it is colloquially known in Osona: an absolutely personal style that characterises his work, with great influence from the European avant-garde and its secessionist derivative. Once in Torelló, we can see the Caixa de Pensions building between partitions, with a long eave covered in green glazed ceramic tiles. Don’t miss the spiral staircase that runs through the entire building. Finally, we can visit the Vergés pantheon (1927), which tells us about the architect’s popularity and prestige among the local bourgeoisie of the Osona region.
