La Ricarda

I love this landscape and the insights it embodies...

Probably not yet known out of the architectural context, La Ricarda is open for reserved groups. Luckily, I have been there for once with friends under a privileged invitation. And our route was exactly the same as shown in the following video:

Airplanes were taking off and landing next to you... It was on Oct. 1, 2011. Unfortunately, I lost all my photos of that day. You may read instead an illustrated dairy with texts in English and Spanish, as well as another report written in Catalan.

To me, the most attractive design is inside (at the same time outside). There is a "dark" corridor with colorful but modest crystal cubes. Apart, what impressed me most were the furniture in the dining room: White chairs have their backs in a form that recall of lecterns in an orchestra (see here at p.12). 

We also climbed up to the roof by a wooden ladder, which was a challenge for me and many others because it looked so tall but was simply laid against the wall. I remember nobody dare get down facing the ground and how we were warning people downstairs to hold it firmly until we were completely off.

Curiously I already knew this area before. Apart from "El Prat" which is the airport I use most often, I also practiced inline skating around it (blue lines in the map), as there is a quiet fitness track for both runners and cyclists; Later, another walking way was built to connect the two terminals. While wandering in the beautiful nature, you can feel how airplanes' shadow invades into your existence. In most of the occasions, the coast-side runway is used for taking-off, and the inner one, for landing. The choice also depends on the wind direction of the day.

Yeah, for me it is interesting to find in a brand catalog such a vase with the dry flowers that I have been seeing from time to time, or an actress in new looks, a TV spot made at a venue I can recognize...

Like Barça's motto which claims "més que un club", we shall say La Ricarda was "more than a house". Besides its stylistic value in architecture and interior design, and besides family memories of who grew up there, it served as a refugee for intellectuals (details in Spanish and French) during Francoist Spain. A documentary has been finished this year for this purpose. Below you can watch the trailer subtitled in English (version in Spanish available here):

Recently, IconicHouses.Org has held its third congress in Barcelona, during which a call was sent about saving this fine work of Antonio Bonet:
Icon at Risk: La Ricarda (English) (Report in Spanish here).

Most of you might know many buildings of Art Nouveau in Barcelona, like the famous Casa Batlló, or the less known Palau Güell, but I think it necessary to draw certain attention also to this jewel of Rationalism: Casa Gomis-Bertrand "La Ricarda", with which I have been in touch quite often but somehow ignored till now. And more, I am personally in great debt to one of its holders and thus, connected to a piece of treasure that witnessed the house's guests of another time.

(All the images, except the map, are from third parties which I have found by Google. Thank you all!)