Camprodon

Buildings:  (all the Catalan names of the buildings)

A Modernisme Walking Tour of Camprodon

General Information on Camprodon

Links to other Web sites about Camprodon

Bibliography

Other towns with interesting Modernisme works

Hotel Rigat (now the Hotel Camprodon)

Address: Plaça Doctor Robert, 2 Camprodon (Ripollès)

Built in 1914, the Hotel Rigat is still open and serving guests as it did when it was constructed and contributes both to the natural beauty of the neighborhood and to the development of the tourist industry on which much of the town depends.  It was designed by the architect Juli Mari Fossas i Martinez in a late Modernisme style with historical details that simultaneously contrast with and graciously complement the surroundings.  The neighboring Cinema Rigat, discussed further below, helps balance the architecture styles.  The hotel comprises a main level and three floors; the third floor is in the form of an attic, with a central neck/trunk/shaft that cuts the sloping tile roof and gives it a special physiognomy.  The windows on the two central floors have balconies with wrought iron handrails infused with typical Modernisme designs, somewhat influenced by the Sezession movement in Austria.  Although this is a working hotel, you can tour the grounds and the sensibly modified interior.

Cinema Rigat, or Can Rigordosa

Address: Plaça Doctor Robert, 3 Camprodon (Ripollès)

The three-story Cinema Rigat was constructed around 1914 and was designed by architect Juli Mari Fosses i Martinez, who also designed the Hotel Rigat, above.  It is in the late Modernisme style, and its imaginative facade recalls the early designs of Puig i Cadafalch.  Surprisingly, the windows on each floor are different: voussoired arches on the ground floor, square windows on the second, and a gallery of Romanesque arches on the third.  The ground floor windows are, furthermore, covered with some tiled roof canopies, with that of the balcony being the largest.  The handrail is wooden.  Unfortunately, only the exterior may be observed.

Can Surís, or Casa de les Monges (House of the Nuns)

Address: Carrer València, 44 Camprodon (Ripollès)

This one-story house is an interesting construction of three facades in a poor state of conservation (though now undergoing restoration).  The front facade opens out onto the town’s main thoroughfare, the rear facade looks out over the river, and the side borders a narrow, less interesting street.  It was built in the early twentieth century by architect Josep Renom i Costa in a melange of Modernisme, historicista, and neo-Baroque styles.  The house is almost entirely of stone, and some decorative ceramic tiles that break the uniformity of the stone and run along the main façade.  The ground floor features a large window with an arch of stone supported by four stone columns; this window is also accented by the green ceramic tiles that run across the front of the building.  Upstairs are five windows, three with balconies with wrought iron handrails.  The middle and most important window/balcony encompasses the three central windows/openings.  The rear façade reveals the opposite of the front: a variation of depths with a strongly bombada central part and two asymmetric lateral wings.  The lowest part has three openings that allow light and ventilation into the basement, protected with highly decorative wrought iron grilles.  As Can Surís is a private home, only the exterior may be observed.

Can Blanch

Carrer València, 46 Camprodon (Ripollès)

The building on a corner of the most commercial street in town, Can Blanch was designed by an unknown architect.  It has an eclectic style that predates Modernisme and has been losing some of its most interesting characteristics—most recently, the front door—but on the corner is preserved the original wooden balcony, crowned with a ceramic emblem in which one can find a pre-modernist feature.

La Palanca o Can Vila

Carrer València, 28 Camprodon (Ripollès)

Built at the beginning of the twentieth century, this building was for years Telefònica’s town headquarters, hence its popular nickname: Telèfons.  Antoni Coll i Fort designed it in a Modernista style, and it consists of a ground floor and three upper floors, the first of which has, at an angle, a platform with a view topped by a balcony—an assemblage that contrasts notably with the rest of the building and could be considered the most characteristically modernista part of the structure.  The openings on the first and second floors have balconies with wrought-iron railings, unlike the third floor, which sports only windows.  The crown of the building’s corner angle unites the two facades in a uniquely-spaced fashion.  As is typical of mountain town constructions, the building is covered with a tile roof that ends in rafters of considerable width.  Only the exterior is of any architectural interest.

Can Roig

Carrer Freixenet, 21 (Cantonada a C./ Mossèn Cinto) Camprodon (Ripollès)

An impressive house, with dimensions and characteristics that in earlier times would have qualified it as a palace, Can Roig was built between 1900 and 1901, though it is now in a lamentable state of ruin.  Architect Simó Cordomí i Carrer planned a grandiose building combining Modernisme and its neo-Gothic variant, with a basic style including a square main tower recalling some of the earliest constructions of Puig i Cadafalch.  The front door is today missing, but it was a heavily ornamented Gothic affair, covered by a sort of loggia of Romanesque arches crowned by crenulations.  An element of the rich exterior decoration is still visible, with sculptured stone pieces that allow one to imagine the magnificence that once have must attached to the entire building.  The interior is completely in ruins, given that the majority of the roof tiles have collapsed inward.

Can Cabot

Carrer Freixenet, 15 (Camprodon, (Ripollès)

This house was built between 1900 and 1905 by the prestigious architect Enric Sagnier I Villavecchia.  It consists of a single-family chalet in the traditional Modernista style comprised of a ground floor, upstairs, and loft areas.  The façade, a simple structure without balconies but with arched openings, gently breaks the line of lofts with three narrow openings allowing light and ventilation.  The roof is elegant, prolonged by an extended cornice sustained by rafters and wooden supports.  Can Cabot is a private home; only the exterior can be viewed.

Pastisseria Antiga Casa Sala

Carrer València, 13 (Camprodon, (Ripollès)

This small business dedicated to pastries sports Modernista decoration.  Its architect, or perhaps only decorator, was Permanyer.

Pastisseria Can Travera

Carrer València, 67 (Camprodon, Ripollès)

Another bakery with Modernista décor.