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Basic information:
Location:
Afores, s/n - Camí de la Pobla a Clot del Moro
La Pobla de Lillet (Berguedà)
Qualification:
xxxxx
(2 on
5)
Present condition:
Very
good,
Gardens restored in 1992.
How to go to: By car: La Pobla de Lillet is
around 130 Km. from Barcelona and 70 Km. from Manresa, following
the road C-16 arriving to Guardiola de Bergadà, take the road B-402
to La Pobla de Lillet. Being arrived to La Pobla take the street
to the small train way and follow it to the Garden parking, from
there walk around 200 meters to the Gardens gate.
By Bus:
Through
Alsina Graells Company call previously
to the phone number
93 265 65 92. From Barcelona to Manresa, Berga and La Pobla de Lillet.
Manel Mir Vila Company call previously to the phone number 972 70 30 12.
From Ripoll to Campdevànol and La Pobla de Lillet.
By train:
RENFE, from Barcelona to Ripoll or Campdevànol,
and from there by BUS through Manel Mir Vila Company (Phone number 972 70 30 12).
Ripoll-Campdevànol-La Pobla de Lillet.
Visits: October to June:
Working days: Only appointed visits - see
Information - (In working Mondays gardens are
closed)
Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays: from 10h. to 17h. - Commented visits 12h.
(previous request)
July to September:
Mondays to Sundays: from 10h. to 19h. - Commented visits 12h. and
16h. (previous request)
Fees: Individual visitor: 3
Euros.
Groups of more of 29 people: 2,40 Euros /person
Colleges
of more of 29 people: 2 Euros/person
Commented
visits with a guide are included in the entry fees.
Children with less
of 13 years with his fathers, free entrance.
Available guides:
It is possible to buy at the gate of the gardens the book "Gaudí in
the Vall de Lillet) -
writers:
Joan
Bassegoda, Ramon Espel and Roger Orriols, at a price of 15 Euros.
Handicapped accessibility:
The garden important unevenness
(stairs and pads) can seriously difficult the visits
of handicapped people.
Access not possible for wheelchairs.
Nevertheless, in special cases and under a previous request, it is
possible to enter through the old factory, reducing some of the
difficulties.
Information: Phone: (0034) 93 823 61 46 -
email:
tur.lillet@diba.cat
Tourist office of La Pobla de Lillet: Parc Xesco Boix, s/n.
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History:
The starts:
These gardens were ordered to Gaudí by Joan Artigas i Alart (down photo
*)
during one of the stays the architect
carried out in La Pobla de Lillet.
Gaudí took a first trip in the
year 1902 to follow the evolution of the building works the
Catllaràs Villa. This chalet was an assignment to Gaudí by Eusebi Güell
i Bacigalupi (Count of Güell and sponsor of Gaudí).
Artigas,
a friend of Güell and owner of a textile factory, knowing the
work of Gaudí in the Park Güell then in construction, he wanted to build a garden next to
his factory in both sides of the river Llobregat that crossed his
property.
Artigas was informed of the stay of
the architect in La Pobla de Lillet and send to him a demand to have a
meeting.
The fact is that in a subsequent trip of Gaudí to La Pobla de Lillet, Artigas sent a
coach to collect Gaudí to the station of Ripoll and lodged
the architect in his house.
Artigas asked to Gaudí for some sketches of the garden. After this stay in
La Pobla de Lillet, Gaudí returned to
Barcelona and .....
The construction:
Gaudí, did not only carry out the sketches ordered by Artigas, but he also sent two
bricklayers working in the Park Güell to help in
the construction of the gardens and training the workers to
follow the works once they return to Barcelona. After two months these two workers transferred the responsibility to the
local bricklayers and back to Barcelona.
The works were developed since 1903
until 1910. During this period, at the ends of the year 1903, Joan
Artigas i Alart, initial developer of the project, died.
Joan Artigas i Casas (photo to the right
*), the son of Joan Artigas,
followed the business activity and the construction of the garden.
The
local workers continued the construction following the sketches of Gaudí
to the project end.
Sadly, the mentioned original sketches aren't arrived to us, because they burned in the fire of the factory
at the end of the civil war (1939).
The abandonment:
Since the end of the works, the garden has passed, as usual, through
various historic vicissitudes.
Because of the die of Joan Artigas i Casas in the year 1934 and the
civil war initiated two years later, the garden was falling in the abandonment
worsened by the fire of the factory before mentioned.
In the fifties, the
family Artigas was transferred to Barcelona.
During these years, the work
of Gaudí and the modernism (Catalan Art Nouveau) were hardly criticized, first
by the Noucentisme (the style following the Catalan Art Nouveau) and subsequently by architectural conceptions
arriving even to propose the interruption of the works of the
Sagrada Família.
The renaissance:
Until 1971 in which appeared in the newspaper of Barcelona
"El Correo Catálán" a report titled "Gaudí in La Pobla de Lillet"
no more interest on that gardens was manifested. In this writing, it was spoken on the Artigas
Gardens,
on the chalet del Catllaràs and on the chalet del Clot del Moro, suggesting that they were works of Gaudí.
This was
the start of a new interest by these exceptional works that in spite of
all, did not have been developed till the year 1982 in
which a doctorate student of the Cátedra Gaudí -Josep Lluís
Dalmau i Miralles- carried out a study including to draw up the designs of
the gardens.
The next year -July 11, 1983 - the major of La Pobla de Lillet, Joan Casanova, and the brothers Costa Artigas
-owners of the land-, signed a transfer agreement of the
gardens by a period of 25 years for public use.
In 1989, the major of La Pobla, Josep Bober, entrusted to the Cátedra Gaudí the
studies to edit a public park project developed by the architects Joan Bassegoda, Witold Burkiewicz and the
technical architect Ramon Espel.
The works of restoration were itself carrying out little by little from
the year 1992, respecting the initial idea of Gaudí, redoing all the
sculptures and applying new techniques where it was necessary, as for example
in the banisters substituting the interior wire nettings
causing oxidation problems, by plastic nettings.
In all these actions
the contribution of an extraordinary local
bricklayer, Valentí Rovira, had been very important.
The present time:
At present, the garden presents an excellent aspect and is visited by numerous
people
enjoying the park alone or through commented visits.
Description:
Generalities:
In comparison of another great garden of Gaudí, the Park Güell,
which is a
dry garden, the Artigas Gardens are humid gardens.
Really, the Gardens Artigas Gardens are very humid. They are crossed by the river Llobregat, they have a source,
the "Source of the magnesia" (name by which also they are known) and they
are found in a mountainous and humid place.
Another difference among both
gardens is the character of urban park, of a very ordinate structure and of
many open spaces although very adapted to the nature of the Park Güell, in
contrast with the Gardens Artigas that are of naturalistic type, with few
flowers, but only the natural flowers of that area and with an exuberant natural
vegetation.
It seems as if here, Gaudí only wanted to simplify
the men walk, avoiding the unnecessary changes in the nature.
The gardens Artigas are again, as all the works of Gaudí a
paradigm of originality and imagination visible in every corner of the work. But
on the contrary of the Park Güell (with who we will not stop to do comparisons), the Artigas
Gardens
show a sobriety of colour that is the antithesis of the "trencadís"
(decorative mosaic carried out with broken ceramic pieces) so frequent in
the Park Güell. This sobriety is due to the utilization of the natural
materials of the place, specially the natural rocky stone. By this reason,
the predominant colours of these gardens are the stone brown and
the vegetation green.
The entrance:
The access to the gardens is done at present by a new entrance close to
the
small train from La Pobla de Lillet to Clot del Moro.
Descending the stairs that carry us at the lower level of the gardens and
continuing toward the left, by a walk that flanks the river with stone banisters
and flower beds, we arrive at a waterfall of rustic stone
covered with moss where the water slides.
Further on to the right it is the
access to a bridge. But we continue straight ahead until arriving at a copse of pines
to whose left we see the
Ox fountain (work, as all the sculptures of
the garden done during the restoration, by Ramon Millet i
Domènech).
The magnesia spring:
Continuing the pad and rising few stairs, we arrive at a small square
with banisters on the riverbed.
This square is located exactly over the
artificial cave of the Magnesia Spring, that seems to be the
denomination that initially denoted the gardens (instead of Artigas Gardens).
This cave built with large river stones, has two entrances
and two small openings from who it is possible to seen the river. A bank of
the same stone follow the sinuous walls of the cave and allow
to enjoy the fresh air and the water rumour, specially during the
spring and the summer in which the temperature is more pleasant.
Near and over the path down to the Magnesia Spring and to the old Gardens
gate, we find a small square
with a bank and a flower bed over the river.
Beyond, we find the pergola of the Lion
fountain (work also by Ramon Millet).
The common religious references in almost all the works of Gaudí, would be
represented in this garden by the symbols of the four evangelists: the
lion of Saint Marcus represented in one of the sources, the ox of the
other source representing Saint Lucas, the eagle of the start of the stair
to the bower, would represent Saint John. Saint Mathew would have been
represented by an, at present nonexistent, angel that seems that had
existed in the waterfall cavern interior source to the war of 1936-1939.
These four images would form under a bird's-eye view an imaginary cross.
The upper level (eagle,
bower) :
Returning behind, we arrive to the
inclined bridge crossing the Llobregat,
two stone flower beds in each side of the bridge are the start of the
bridge stairs rising to a succession of small platforms with trunks imitating cement
banisters, one of this platforms are a belvedere and a little up a statue
built in small stone represents an eagle and
further up it is a bower.
The bower passed, a path get us
rising among flower beds of original design with twisted shapes and built
in small stone on cement (as the eagle), to an original arch of
cement imitating the wood.
From here, a long path
in zigzag descends us pleasantly to the start level of the visit, but not without
previous passed through a belvedere with a table and three banks, the larger supported
by the wall and two smaller to both side of a table since where we can
enjoy a view on the nearby
Arches bridge.
The Arches bridge:
This is perhaps the most important construction of the garden, this bridge
has a curious structure of five rocky stone arches in cross and
longitudinal sense. In addition of that, in its entrance we find the
figures of a
man and a woman with a basket
on the head.
The faces and
hands of these figures are a done contribution during the restoration -
work also of the sculptor Ramon Millet -, that already they existed before,
but carried out with not sculpted rustic stone.
Next to the woman of the
basket there is a
stair with a wood imitating cement banister,
that carries us to a small square under the bridge.
End of the visit:
Crossing the Arches bridge we arrive to the other side of the
river, in front of the entrance-exit stairs starting from a square with a
palm tree surrounded by plane trees.
The necessary time to
carry out the visit, depends naturally of what we want to do,
because the gardens invite to the calm, the rest and the reflection, but a
time of an hour is reasonable.
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