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The history of the house Leandro Bou, born in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat in 1868, a builder and real estate developer, dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, when he decided to develop his professional activity between Barcelona and the Argentine city of Rosario, where his children would be born. .
Bou cannot find a simpler solution than to build two family residences in each of the two cities where he plans to practice his professional life and thus avoid wandering around hotels in both countries.
Leandro is outraged with the political class that, in his words, only seeks confrontations and crises causing civil conflicts, so he decides to develop his work between the two cities and in this way avoid problematic times in the two countries.
This vision of the facts allowed him to have a career far from the political influences of his time, detecting the trends in the construction of both countries due to the set of works that were being built and in this way being able to contribute to the architectural culture of modernism. .
His work meant that his relationship with clients and competitors was created in an affable and harmonious environment, far from the frequent work clashes at that time between institutions and clients.
A slogan that was the norm during his working life and an example that he sought to transmit to his children, who continued to dedicate themselves to the noble art of designing and constructing new buildings.
The Leandro Bou building in Barcelona was built between 1902 and 1903 on the corner of Valencia and Enric Granados streets, designed by the architect Antoni Serrallach Hernández-Periñán.
Initially it consisted of a main ground floor and three floors, topped by a fifth and last floor with a series of stone ornaments as a crown.
The façade consisted of a main floor that broke the symmetry of the four upper floors with four central openings in which the balustrades of the balconies combined wrought iron with stone. On both sides there were semicircular stands that began on the main floor and reached the upper floor, where there are setbacks.
The windows of the tribunes are glazed with a trefoil lintel and floral decorations on the slab under the first tribune. Following the stands we find two other axes of openings. In the center of the façade was the access door to the building, framed by the balcony with a stone balustrade.
On the first floor above the door, only on the main floor, there are two doors divided by a column that support the continuous balcony on the second floor. Starting from the main floor, the façade was made with different decorations that gave a personalized touch to each of the exits to the street.
In the 1920s, a renovation of one more floor was carried out. Modernism had already passed away. Although the renovation did not cause aesthetic damage, like the renovations that were built during the Franco regime, and the incorporation of the additional floor was finished in the form of a mansard. The façade with the inclined wall covered with slate plates, eliminated the 11 pinnacles that crowned it.
The renovation was carried out by the architect Josep Domérico Mansana, who eliminated the elements of ornamental plant themes, simplifying the previous ornamentation of balconies and windows.
The mansard is a finish of the old buildings that owes its name to François Mansart. It is a type of roof easily identifiable by its characteristic two skirts, the lower one much more inclined than the upper one, which allows very effective use of space. In the history of inventions, many times the holder of the patent or the idea of ??the project is not the one who actually carried it out. More or less the same thing happens with the Mansarda, even by the French themselves.
For those who have been to Paris and visited the Louvre museum, it was designed in 1546 by the architect Pierre Lescot. This projected the southwest wing of the main square of the Louvre. And what solution did he propose for the roof? A broken cover with the same characteristics that François Mansart, born in Paris on January 23, 1598, later popularized under his name. Half a century had passed since the work of Pierre Lescot, until the birth of François Mansart.
When you walk through the Eixample and see some of the houses that were rebuilt in the middle of the 20th century, try to recognize the original of the primitive building and then you will see that the municipal authorities of Barcelona and the owners of those buildings did not know how to take care of the legacy. left by his ancestors.
