Palace Chapel

Restoration of the Palace Church. Alteration to its façade. Elias Rogent, 10 April 1866. Drawing of the design for the restoration of the façade of the Palace Chapel at 4, Carrer d'Ataülf.

Rogent's facet as restorer of architectural heritage involved some his most technical contributions as an architect and his clearly Romantic ideals of love for the historical, monumental past. He worked on various projects to restore buildings and monuments, as well as on other types of actions, such as consolidation, adaptation and repair works, in different places in Catalonia. In Barcelona, some of his most outstanding interventions included the church of Sant Miquel del Port in Barceloneta (1852-1867), the Lawyers' Room in Barcelona Court House (1852-1857) and the Chapel in the Menor Palace (1859-1868).

The scrupulously archaeological criteria he used in his restoration schemes were formed from the ideas of the Frenchman Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc. Rogent knew Viollet-le-Duc very well and was an enthusiastic follower of his. Following Viollet-le-Duc's theories, for Rogent the restoration of a monument had to seek the exact, faithful recovery of its original appearance, with the adoption only of all the elements characterizing the architectural style with which it had been created.