The Department of Culture could have already defined the use it wants to give to the Antiga Foneria Reial de Canons, the building located at the end of the Rambla in Barcelona and classified as a cultural asset of local interest that has been closed since the beginning of the century, when the Government It was acquired from the Ministry of Defense after years of practically being abandoned.
The space that, just before the pandemic, President Joaquim Torra wanted to give to a use with a public and social vocation – “because we think of culture as a tool of integration and cohesion” – could finally become, as this newspaper has learned , in a facility dedicated to innovation and digital culture, a booming area in Barcelona.
The news would make complete sense given that the confluence of art, science and technology is strategic for Barcelona. All administrations are committed to it. Xavier Marcé, the new Councilor for Culture of the City Council, has already mentioned the convenience of opening an opportunity in the field of visual arts technology and promoting a greater connection between the creative industries and the metaverse or artificial intelligence.
However, the project that the department would definitively decide on for the Foneria de Canons would have been promoted by the general directorate of Innovation and Digital Culture, whose visible head, Marisol López, a regular at Sónar D, like the councilor Natàlia Garriga. The Generalitat is committed to this area and would not miss this good moment that the intersection between art, science and technology is experiencing.
The decision comes when this old neoclassical-style mansion, which one day was the headquarters of the Bank of Barcelona and later a military dependency, seemed to have fallen into administrative oblivion, until the Generalitat acquired it just two decades ago. How could a space like this in the center of Barcelona have been closed! President Torra asked himself that same question, although he did not even manage to outline his desideratum. In fact, more than a dozen councilors have paraded through Culture during this time. The heavy investment required for the renovation would have been the first obstacle to getting the place up and running.
Now, however, the decision would have been made. Digital would have won the game. Some sources suggest that the equipment could end up in the orbit of Arts Santa Mònica. Details that the department will make public next week, when it plans to present the project.
The history of this building dates back to 1537, when Emperor Charles V ordered the Consell de Cent to establish a royal cannon foundry there. But in 1714, Philip V prohibited the local manufacture of artillery – it would be produced only in the Atarazanas – so the foundry was then limited to the production of other products. The bells of Barcelona Cathedral, Tomasa and Honorata, come from there.
When the section of 13th century wall on Rambla Santa Mònica was demolished, a building with a ground floor and an upper floor was built on this site in 1777. And it was not until 1844 that the banker and politician Manuel Girona converted it into the headquarters of the Bank of Barcelona, ??which could be the first private bank in Spain. The architect Josep Oriol Mestres renovated and expanded it in a neoclassical style, with a clock finishing off the façade that would be destroyed in the events of the Sis d’Octubre and later replaced by a Francoist shield… But that has already happened.
