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The missing Casa Carulla, owned by Adolfo Carulla, is another case of buildings built by the architect Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia, at the beginning of the 20th century, and which, in a period of urban disorder that the city suffered in the mid-70s, incomprehensibly disappeared.
In its place, an impersonal apartment and office building would be built (not designed) in 1978, named the Tesilia building.
The old building built at Calle Mallorca 212 and 214, next to Calle Enrique Granados, had a royal construction, just as Sagnier and other architects of the time had accustomed us, in whose constructions stone and wrought iron predominated, topped with Original Designs.
Sagnier began construction of the building in 1900, giving it a total height of the ground floor and four stories high, in accordance with the laws in force at that time. And with an artistic enclosure, in which three pediments stood out, the semicircular central one, in which the central pediment with the figure of a sculpture stood out, followed by a straight balustrade with an artistic stone finish.
The sculpture in the center of the façade, of considerable size, was dedicated to evoking painting. Sagnier designed it to adorn the building with the figure of a woman, who was with her arms outstretched, carrying a painter’s palette in one hand and brushes in the other.
The construction finished in 1902, but, despite being saved from the period of the civil war, without damage in the bombardments that the city suffered, unfortunately, and despite the popularity that the building had, it could not be saved from the wild speculation of the decade of the the 70s, as well as the incompetence of municipal governments in preserving artistic heritage.
In its place, the Tesilia Building was built in 1978, a new building with an exposed brick façade that occupied the space where the building of the prolific architect Enric Sagnier, born in Barcelona on March 21, 1858, stood.
But it was not only this building owned by Adolfo Carulla and built by Sagnier, which suffered the ravages of a time when constructions with a high level of artistic value suffered from neglect by the authorities for their conservation.
In the Rambla de Catalunya, 121 in 1898, the same characters built a building with a higher artistic level and although it was not demolished, it was shamefully mutilated, easy to see when walking along the Rambla de Catalunya.
Located between medians, with remarkable dimensions, just by contemplating the current façade and the development of the treatment of the main floor, the most stately, with a continuous openwork stone balcony, adorned with floral reliefs, makes you yearn for being able to contemplate what would have been the development of the primitive enclosure of the building.
Josep M. López-Picó, writer and member of the Sociedad Económica Barcelonesa de Amigos del PaÃs, lived in this building. Next to the entrance door of the building, there is a commemorative plaque made by José MarÃa Subirachs, author of the Puerta de la Pasión de la Sagrada Familia.
To Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia, in my opinion, the city owes him a recognition if not greater, at least similar to that received by Antoni Gaudà i Cornet, LluÃs Domènech i Montaner or Josep Puig i Cadafalch.
During his long career as an architect, he has cataloged 380 works and, among others, we can easily see the following today:
Among the missing buildings we can mention:
