Project to restore Casa Amatller. Barcelona

What are we doing?

Casa Amatller, located at 41 on the emblematic Barcelona avenue of Paseo de Gracia, is an outstanding modernist monument designed by Puig i Cadafalch in 1898.

At the death in 1941 of Teresa Amatller, daughter of the home's first owner, the building with all of its original furniture and art collection was bequeathed to a non-profit private foundation governed by a board of trustees composed of leading personalities in the cultural world and, most especially, in the art history community. Its first director, José Gudiol, started up a Hispanic art research centre anchored in the purchase of the Mas Archive, the best photographic archive of Spanish historical heritage together with the Ruiz Vernacci Archive, property of the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

The core of the project is the former home of the industrialist and chocolate maker Antonio Amatller (1851-1910). The project will restore the Amatller house to its original turn-of-the-century appearance, and open it to the public so people can visit and appreciate its modernist interior and original furniture from that period.

This initiative has been organised in two phases:

• Restoration of the Casa Amatller facade.
• Refurbishment and adaptation of the 2nd floor to house the library and photograph collection of the Amatller Institute of Hispanic Art.

Results

• The project has been funded with a budget of €4,998,550, with Fundación Caja Madrid providing some €2,359,655 of that total.
• Educational workshops.
• All of the artisan work on the project will be filmed to compile a documentary video record of the works.
• A book on the project will come out in the Restored Monuments series.