The Ministry of Culture could have already defined the use it wants to give to the Old Royal Foundry of Canons, the building located at the end of the Rambla in Barcelona and cataloged as a cultural asset of local interest that has remained closed since the beginning century, when the government acquired it from the Ministry of Defense, after a period of near abandonment. The space to which, just before the outbreak of the covid pandemic, President Quim Torra wanted to attribute a use with a public and social vocation – “because we think of culture as a tool for integration and cohesion” – would finally become, as this newspaper has been able to learn, in a facility dedicated to innovation and digital culture, an area with great potential in Catalonia.
The news would have all its logic, since the confluence of art, science and technology is strategic for Barcelona, ??and all the administrations are betting on it. Xavier Marcé, the new Councilor for Culture of the City Council, already mentioned the desirability of opening up an opportunity in the field of visual arts technology and of promoting a greater connection between the creative industries and the video game, the metaverse or artificial intelligence.
But the project for which the ministry would definitely decide for the Antigua Foneria de Canons would have been promoted by the brand-new general direction of Innovation and Digital Culture. Its visible head, Marisol López, is a regular at Sónar D, as is councilor Natàlia Garriga. The Generalitat is very committed to this sector and would not let the good moment pass by this crossroads between art, science and technology.
The decision comes when this old neoclassical style house, which was once the headquarters of the Bank of Barcelona and later a military outpost, seemed to have fallen into administrative oblivion, until the Generalitat acquired it just two decades ago. How could such a space be closed in the center of Barcelona! That’s what President Torra was asking himself, even if he didn’t even get to outline his desideratum. In reality, more than a dozen councilors have paraded through Cultura in these twenty years. The investment in recovery and reform seems important.
Now, however, the decision would have been made. The digital fact would have won the game. Some sources indicate that the equipment could come to be in the orbit of the Center d’Arts Santa Mònica. These are details that the ministry would make public next week, when it plans to present the project.
The history of this building goes back to 1537, when Emperor Charles V ordered the Council of Cent to establish a real cannon foundry there. But in 1714, Felipe V prohibited the local manufacture of artillery – they would only be produced in the Drassanes –, so the foundry was then limited to the production of other products. From here come the bells of the cathedral of Barcelona, ??Tomasa and Honorata.
When the section of the 13th century wall on the Rambla Santa Mònica was demolished, in 1777 a building with a ground floor and a floor was built on this site. And it wasn’t until 1844 that the banker and politician Manuel Girona turned it into the headquarters of the Banc de Barcelona, ??perhaps the first private bank in Spain. The architect Josep Oriol Mestres reformed and expanded it in a neoclassical style with a clock that topped off the facade and which would be destroyed in the events of the 6th of October and replaced by a Franco shield… Until it returned to its place on 1990, with a replica.
