Barcelona will reopen to the public one of the modernist treasures of Passeig de Gràcia

BarcelonaOne of the modernist treasures on Passeig de Gràcia will reopen to the public. The Barcelona City Council plenary session gave the green light this Friday to the comprehensive special plan for the development of the uses of Casa Lleó Morera, which will allow this iconic building by Lluís Domènech i Montaner to reopen as a museum. This will put an end to a decade in which the building—owned by Núñez y Navarro—has been closed to the public. The vote went ahead with the support of PSC, Junts, PP, and Vox, and the abstention of Barcelona en Comú and ERC.

With the approval of this special plan, a tangle that had been going on for years comes to an end. The crux of the conflict lay in the building's accessibility problems and how to resolve them. Specifically, in the eight steps between the street and the elevator. These steps, which are heritage, did not guarantee universal accessibility to the building, which is essential to obtain a use license as a museum. A snag that, until now, the City Council, the Generalitat, and Núñez y Navarro had not managed to overcome.

Finally, however, the property has presented a plan with architectural solutions to guarantee access that the administrations consider do protect the heritage elements. This was emphasized by the first deputy mayor, Laia Bonet, who celebrated that this agreement allows us to "gain citizen life in the city center". In this regard, she argued that the reopening of the Casa Lleó Morera is in line with other actions such as that of the Thyssen Museum at Palau Marcet, to "recover heritage in the center and return a cultural function to it".

Also from Junts, the PP, and Vox applauded a reopening that respects the city's heritage. Barcelona en Comú and Esquerra, on the other hand, opted to abstain. While applauding the heritage preservation of the building, they expressed doubts about how the opening to the public of a modernist gem like this might impact a space that is already "very overcrowded and touristy" like Passeig de Gràcia. For this reason, they expressed their concern about how the flow of the public will be managed on a sidewalk already very pressured by Casa Batlló.

The island of discord

When the Casa Lleó Morera opens to the public — an event for which, despite this Friday's agreement, there is still no date — the three architect-designed houses on the block known as the Block of Discord — due to the supposed rivalry between three of the main architects of Modernisme — will be visitable. These are Casa Batlló, by Antoni Gaudí, Casa Amatller, by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, and the building by Lluís Domènech i Montaner.

In this latter case, the house is the result of the renovation of Casa Rocamora, built in 1864 by master builder Joaquim Sitjas. Domènech i Montaner paid homage to the Lleó Morera family by decorating the façade with winged lions and mulberry flowers, and by placing their initials in a medallion at the top.

One of the challenges Domènech i Montaner faced was that the two façades of the building do not have the same dimensions: the one facing Passeig de Gràcia is wider than the one on Carrer Consell de Cent. To disguise this, the architect designed a bay window on the chamfer, crowned with a small temple. This new vertical axis is what first captures the attention of passers-by.