He has returned water to Gaudí's waterfall

The young architect Antoni Gaudí did "small projects," like the renovation of the Sant Gervasi Theater. Or Casa Vicens. For this beautiful summer residence in Barcelona's Gràcia neighborhood, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, he designed a stone and ceramic waterfall with a parabolic arch. The water cascaded through the vegetation into a small pond, which served as a laundry. Some bathed there (sadly, a little girl drowned). But the garden shrank due to real estate pressure, and the waterfall was demolished in 1945. A small chapel also disappeared.

"The original plans for Casa Vicens were in the Casa da Villa in Gràcia. We held a meeting in my office to explore the possibilities of reconstructing the waterfall," Daniel Giralt-Miracle, an art historian and critic specializing in Gaudí, tells me. "I innocently presented the proposal to Aigües de Barcelona, and they immediately said yes," Daniel recalls. new The waterfall was installed in the Museu de les Aigües, located in the Cornellà Power Plant, which has been collecting water and pumping it to Barcelona and the metropolitan area since 1909. The waterfall is one of the main attractions of the museum's garden. It is made with 27,000 bricks and 3,000 bricks. It has the same dimensions and was made with the same techniques and materials as the original. Even the "rhythm of the bricks" was respected: it was known which ones were placed first and which ones last. There is only one difference: now the water is reused (a closed circuit prevents waste). Oh! And there—in Casa Vicens—they called it a fountain, and here—in the garden of the Museo de las Aguas—it is called a waterfall.

I am now standing in front of the curtain of water falling from this magnificent waterfall, which has been dry for a few years. The lockdown caused by Covid-19 forced the museum to close for a few months, but the closure was extended to carry out renovations. And the persistent drought did the rest: the waterfall hasn't been working for a few years. A few weeks ago, it was "reborn." Just seeing it and hearing its sound refreshes me.

Just behind the waterfall is a large water tank. It was built without any aesthetic consideration. But that shortcoming has been corrected. A few initiatives have been incorporated: on one side—the back of the waterfall—there is a vertical garden, and another side is lined with small aluminum sheets, which move when the wind blows, simulating waves. Furthermore, the top of the building is now being used: there are solar panels.

The museum's garden, previously unvisitable, has been gaining prominence, like the balconies of many houses during the COVID-19 lockdown, the beaches of Barcelona, or the attics of some homes. It's worth a visit. It's not that it complements the visit to the museum, no: it's an essential part.

If you walk through the garden, you're likely to see gardeners at work. It's a very well-kept space. It's no surprise that you'll find a sea of animals: rabbits, owls, night herons that come from the Llobregat River... And lots of fruit trees: peach, apple, mandarin, orange, lemon, and plum trees. You'll even find a tree that produces mandarins and lemons—yes, both fruits!—next to a eucalyptus tree—a tree that needs a lot of water and is no longer installed in public spaces—is another of the garden's main "pieces." It's a vertical steam pump for extracting water, supported by classical columns, known as a chapel. "It was manufactured by the Catalan company Alexander Hermanos in 1894 and was one of the protagonists of the so-called 'water revolution' in Barcelona; it incorporated technology that allowed the water collection and supply system to be modernized," David Rovira, historian at the Museo de las Aguas, tells me.

I approach one of the wells in the garden. I can hear the sound of water, a sign that it's working. It's a well from 1936, in the Rationalist style. "Wells go to find abundant, quality water from the immense aquifer below. They break through the clay layer," Marta So explains.ler, responsible for educational activities at the museum, who also lies to uscompany.

The garden's "star" well, built in 1909 and in the iron architecture style, was constructed by the French company Fives-Lille, which, among other projects, built the Eiffel Tower elevators. It descends to a depth of 30 meters. Initially, it extracted about 400 liters per second. A good part of Barcelona once drank water from this well.