Between 1932 and 1933, the so-called Worker's Housing Group was built, a collection of small houses (
casetes) commissioned by the
Generalitat de Catalunya. During the construction of the Worker's Housing Group, the working hours of the construction workers and quantities of materials used to build the
casetes were kept under exact control, so that the exact cost of the
development could be calculated. The living area of each of these buildings was 35m² plus a small garden. In addition, in order to save money, an attempt was made to solve the problem of a low maximum occupancy of the buildings, which was solved by adding a second floor to each of the buildings. With regards to the success of this scheme, the Generalitat de Catalunya considered building a larger project, and the idea of the Casa Bloc arose.
Josep Lluís Sert (1902-1983),
Joan Baptista Subirana (1904-1978), and
Josep Torres Clavé (1906-1939) designed a large building with more than 200 apartments for workers in the industrial district of
Sant Andreu, many of whom at that time still lived in shacks, generally in very poor conditions. The project was supported by the Casa Obrera, a body under the
Government of Catalonia in charge of building housing for workers and improve the living conditions of the socially disadvantaged. The official laying of the first stone in 1933 was attended by the President of the Generalitat,
Francesc Macià. The
Spanish Civil War prevented the completion of the Casa Bloc and the conclusion of the three-year conflict put an end to the philosophy that had underpinned its construction. The building was allocated not to workers but to the families, widows, and orphans of members of the
Nationalist forces and, a little later, to the national police. Structurally, the finished building was at odds with the aims of the
GATCPAC architects: the communal spaces on the ground floor were completed in other ways, part of the original system of vertical access and corridors was discarded, and the primary purpose of the project and its social and cultural function was lost. The GATCPAC members had sought to embody key elements of the group's thinking in the Casa Bloc, with a program designed to provide decent housing at low cost while suggesting new forms of social living and collective identity, formalized in a new urbanism based on a new concept of the city. This creative freedom, closely aligned with the tenets of the European avant-garde of the time, and reflecting a significant social commitment, was swept away in
Francoist Spain, and was not recognized and recovered until the
restoration of democracy.
Change to Museum The museumizing of Room 1/11 of the Casa Bloc, now recognized as a unique example of socially committed rationalist architecture in
Catalonia, has been an intense and exciting project, the completion of which allows to experience at first hand the interior of one of the apartments just as its creators intended. With the restoring of the apartment to its original structure and appearance and its opening to the public as a museumized space
Disseny Hub Barcelona added a new project to their core mission: to further our knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the design of objects and spaces. With this latest venture they pay tribute to the architects who conceived and constructed this building, members of the historic
GATCPAC Group of Catalan Architects and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture, whose innovative spirit, social commitment and high standards, both aesthetic and ethical, still provide a referent for Catalan architecture today. For two years, INCASÒL and
DHUB have worked together on this project, initially on the architectural rehabilitation and subsequently on the conceptual, documentary and museologicalaspects, in order to restore Room 1/11 to its original structure and appearance. The museumization of the apartment has consisted in returning it to its initial state: the various elements added or altered during almost eighty years of use have been removed and the interior has been restored in its entirety. This has involved fitting out a period kitchen, bathroom, laundry area and shower, laying original cement tiles and replacing the folding doors in the dining room, all from other apartments in the Casa Bloc. A number of other items, such as taps and light switches, have been expertly matched with corresponding original pieces from the 1930s. In addition, in order to make it easier to understand the living and circulation spaces, both the dining room and the bedrooms have been furnished in period style. The success of this project is due to the painstaking process of research and restoration and thanks to the active involvement of the residents of the Casa Bloc. The Casa Bloc -Room 1/11 project is a joint initiative of the INCASÒL Catalan Land Institute of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the owners of the building, and Barcelona City Council's ICUB (Institute of Culture), by way of DHUB. The two institutions signed a collaboration agreement on 2 December 2009 for the realization of the Apartment-Museum. == Apartment-House Museum 1/11==