Casa Trinxet was a building designed by the Catalan

Modernisme ''Modernisme'' (, Catalan for "modernism"), also known as Catalan modernism and Catalan art nouveau, is the historiographic denomination given to an art and literature movement associated with the search of a new entitlement of Catalan cultu ...

architect

Josep Puig i Cadafalch Josep Puig i Cadafalch (; 17 October 1867 in Mataró – 21 December 1956 in Barcelona) was a Spanish architect who designed many significant buildings in Barcelona, and a politician who had a significant role in the development of Catalan regio ...

(also architect of

Casa Amatller Casa Amatller () is a building in the Modernisme style in Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, designed by renowned Catalan architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Along with Casa Batlló and Casa Lleó-Morera, it makes up the three most important buildings ...

) and built during the years 1902–1904, officially considered completed in 1904. It was located at the crossroads of Carrer Balmes and Carrer del Consell de Cent, in the ''

Eixample The Eixample (, ) is a district of Barcelona between the old city (Ciutat Vella) and what were once surrounding small towns (Sants, Gràcia, Sant Andreu, etc.), constructed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its population was 262,000 at ...

'' district of

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. Casa Trinxet was "one of the jewels of Barcelona Modernisme" and one of the buildings of Barcelona's

Illa de la Discòrdia The Illa de la Discòrdia () or Mansana de la Discòrdia — "Block of Discord"; — is a city block on Passeig de Gràcia in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The block is noted for having buildings by four of Barcel ...

("Block of Discord"), because of competing attitudes among

Domènech i Montaner Domènech () is a common Catalan surname. Its variants are Domènec, Domenech and Doménech. It can also be found sometimes as a given name. People As surname * Adrián Domenech, a retired Argentine football player and former coach of Argentin ...

, Puig i Cadafalch and

Antoni Gaudí Antoni Gaudí i Cornet ( , ; ; 25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) was a Catalans, Catalan architect and designer from Spain, widely known as the greatest exponent of Catalan ''Modernisme''. Gaudí's works have a style, with most located in Barc ...

. The building was commissioned by Avelino Trinxet Casas, Mir Trinxet's Uncle, who belonged to the textile industrial family Trinxet, from Barcelona.

Mir Trinxet paintings

Joaquin Mir Trinxet (Barcelona, 1873–1940) contributed several murals to the house, after his trip to Majorca with

Santiago Rusiñol Santiago Rusiñol i Prats (, ; Barcelona 25 February 1861 – Aranjuez 13 June 1931) was a Spanish painter, poet, journalist, collector and playwright. He was one of the leaders of the Catalan '' modernisme'' movement. He created more than ...

, where he met the mystic Belgian painter William Degouve de Nuncques in 1899, and before his move to Reus. He started his work on the house in 1903 This being his major work, Mir captured his total conception of the landscape. Mir Trinxet's style is curious in this house, paint impressionistically scattered, in contrast to his other work that is decidedly less fragmented. It is a blur of colored vision, a haze of dots that travel across the eye. In the house, Mir Trinxet use a technique that gives the painting a mysticism, an almost magical luminosity, as flowers glow as orange and yellow lamps on a bed of lush green. Here we have all the warmth and freshness of a garden, intensity provided in colored blooms, and dew that clings to leaves and grass seeped into a crisp pale green. It is a painting that transports its viewer, absorbs them into an atmosphere, fitting for a mural, which has the power to change the room it commands. These mural paintings were the most artistic period of Mir Trinxet.

Catalan Modernism in architecture and painting

Coffer and small tables from Casa Trinxet

In the Spanish histories of art, not only did a thriving school indeed exist in the main centers of Barcelona and Madrid, but its character was wide-ranging, bountiful, and in some cases astonishingly original. The painters who pushed Spain into the modern era in art are hardly familiar names outside Spain. Painters like Bereute,

, Casas, Anglada, Pinazo, Juaquin Mir Trinxet, Regoyos, and many others, contributed to the character of Spanish painting at the dawn of the 20th century. The Catalan modernism is often understood as an equivalent to a number of fin-de-siècle art movements, such as

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

Jugendstil (; "Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany, Austria and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German and Austrian cou ...

, Secessionism, and

Liberty style Liberty style ( ) was the Italian variant of Art Nouveau, which flourished between about 1890 and 1914. It was also sometimes known as ("floral style"), ("new art"), or ("modern style" not to be confused with the Spanish variant of Art Nouveau ...

, and was active from roughly 1888 (the First International Exhibition of Barcelona) to 1911 (the death of

Joan Maragall Joan Maragall i Gorina (; 10 October 1860 – 20 December 1911) was a Catalan poet, journalist and translator, the foremost member of the movement in literature. His manuscripts are preserved in the Joan Maragall Archive of Barcelona. Li ...

). The ''Modernisme'' movement was centered on the city of

, and is best known for its architectural expression, especially the work of

, but was also significant in sculpture, poetry, theatre and painting. The earliest example of ''Modernista'' architecture is the café "Castell dels tres Dragons" designed by

Lluís Domènech i Montaner Lluís Domènech i Montaner (; 21 December 1850 – 27 December 1923) was a Catalan architect who was very much involved in and influential for the Catalan '' Modernisme català'', the Art Nouveau/ Jugendstil movement. He was also a Catalan pol ...

in the "Parc de la Ciutadella" for the 1888 Universal Exhibition. It is a search for a particular style for Catalonia drawing on Medieval and Arab styles. Like the currents known in other countries as

, Jugendstil, Stile Liberty, Modern Style or Sezessionstil, ''Modernisme'' is basically derived from the English

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

and the

Gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

. As well as combining a rich variety of historically-derived elements, it is characterized by the predominance of the curve over the straight line, by rich decoration and detail, by the frequent use of vegetal and other organic motifs, the taste for asymmetry, a refined aestheticism, and the dynamic shapes. Influential architects were

and

, and later

Josep Maria Jujol José María Jujol Gibert (16 September 1879 – 1 May 1949) was a Catalan Spanish architect. Jujol's wide field of activity ranged from furniture designs and painting, to architecture. He worked with Antoni Gaudí on many of his most famous ...

and Enrique Nieto. 1893 saw the formation in Barcelona of the independent Colla del Safrá group including, more particularly, painters Isidre Nonell i Monturiol and Joaquim Mir i Trinxet.

La Ilustració Catalana LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...

published on 10 March 1907: "Spaniards....made already comments....about the works of Domènech, Puig i Cadafalch, Sagnier, Gaudí and others ". By 1910, ''Modernisme'' had been accepted by the bourgeoisie and had turned into a fad. It was around this time that Noucentista artists started to ridicule the rebel ideas of ''Modernisme'' and propelled a more bourgeois art.

History

During the modernism period, the catalán bourgeoisie commissioned buildings (ocupping the principal floor) and the most wealthy constructed a house. The Casa Trinxet, like many buildings constructed at the time, it was named after its owner. It was built for the Trinxet family. Avelino Trinxet was also the owner of the Trinxet fabric, build in 1907 by Joan Alsina i Arús en Can Trinxet, in Hospitalet, near Barcelona, in a modernist fashion. It was located near to the Casa Serra, also planned by Josep Puig i Cadafalch (in 1903) which both in its time were two of the best examples of single-family urban houses in Barcelona. Casa Trinxet was a triumph of Modernism, exquisite in design and thus entirely decadent when it came to decoration. It had a spectacular interior. The vidres were made in picture-style appearance, like the commissioned by Trinxet to the Rigalt, Granell y Cía. firm in 1910–1912, following instructions from Joaquín Mir Trinxet. The Casa Trinxet was demolished in 1968 despite attempts by artists and intellectuals to save it for conversion into a museum of Modernism, in the period of Porcioles council, for the builders Nuñez i Navarro. Lastly, movements were late to save Casa Trinxet.

Noteworthy

* The building was awarded. Between 1899 and 1906, the Arts Building Annual Award (Concurso anual de edificios artísticos) awarded modernist pieces, like the

Casa Calvet Casa Calvet () is a building, designed by Antoni Gaudí for a textile manufacturer which served as both a commercial property (in the basement and on the ground floor) and a residence. It is located at Carrer de Casp 48, Eixample district of Bar ...

, the

Casa Lleó Morera The Casa Lleó Morera () is a building designed by noted modernisme architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, located at Passeig de Gràcia 35 in the Eixample district of Barcelona. In 1902 Francesca Morera assigned Lluís Domènech i Montaner to ...

and the Casa Trinxet. * "All I want is for my works to lighten the heart and flood the eyes and the soul with light." That was how Joaquim Mir, "one of the most famous and influential artists in Catalan art circles in the early 20th century", summed up his private art manifesto in 1928

''Casa Trinxet'' in the literature

Mentioned in more than two dozen books, including: * Torres García: Pasión Clásica * Miscel•lània en homenatge a Joan Ainaud de Lasarte * Cuadernos de arquitectura: Números 63-66 * Art català contemporani * Barcelona modernista * Joan Rubió i Bellver y la fortuna del gaudinismo * El pintor Joaquín Mir, by Josep Pla

Antecedents of the Casa Trinxet

Antecedents of Casa Trinxet were

and

Casa Batlló () is a building in the center of Barcelona, Spain. It was designed by Antoni Gaudí, and is considered one of his masterpieces. A remodel of a previously built house, it was redesigned in 1904 by Gaudí (but the actual construction works hadn't ...

. In the first case, in 1898, the chocolatier industrial Antoni Amatller, bought a building in 1875 to establish his family. He commissioned the transformation of the house to

, which decided give the building an appearance of urban gotic palace, like the solution he employed lately in the Baron de Quadras palace ( Palacio del Barón de Quadras) and in the Casa Macaya.

Bibliography

* Urbanization General Treatise * Gaudi: complete work. . * El pintor Joaquín Mir, by Josep Pla * ''Interior of Barcelona in the 19th century''Maribel Rosselló Nicolau, ''L'interior a Barcelona en el segle XIX'', Editorial Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.http://www.tesisenred.net/bitstream/handle/10803/6088/13MIrn13de16.pdf?sequence=13

References

* * Rainer Zervst. Gaudi, 1852–1926, Antoni Gaudi i Cornet – A Life Devoted to Architecture. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH & Co. KG., 1988. p176.

External links

ART NOUVEAU IN CATALONIA

A Steam-powered Nation

Arxiu de Patrimoni Arquitectònic de Catalunya (EPSEB-UPC)
{{coord, 41, 23, 39, N, 2, 09, 24, E, type:landmark_source:kolossus-cawiki, display=title Modernisme architecture in Barcelona Passeig de Gràcia Housing in Spain Residential buildings completed in 1904 Eixample Visionary environments Tourist attractions in Barcelona Josep Puig i Cadafalch buildings Demolished buildings and structures in Spain Buildings and structures demolished in 1968 1968 disestablishments in Spain