First steps in the restoration of Güell Pavilions
The first of the four stages will start this summer. In the meeting, AM2 Arquitectes presented the directing plan and the different phases of the project; then, the company Veclus gave details of the historical studies of the buildings; Fem Patrimoni presented the characterization of the materials, and last, Hostench Architects-UPC showed a photometry and digital scan of the pavilions.
The Barcelona City Council and the UB signed an agreement in 2014 for the ceding of the uses of the pavilions. The university receives an annual economic compensation of about 100,000 euros to give the buildings. Institut del Paisatge Urbà will carry out the full restoration of the space and the surroundings of the pavilions and will open the space to the public with tourist, cultural, educational and scientific activities. At the moment there are guided tours as part of the Ruta del Modernisme. The works of the first phase will start this summer and will consist of changing the fence and creating an access to the place in avinguda Pedralbes.
The space in the Güell Pavilions, located in the Barcelona Knowledge Campus, has two buildings built by Antoni Gaudí ─stables and picador, and the guardʼs stall─ and the garden delimited by avinguda de Pedralbes, in George Collins street and the gardens of the Faculty of Law. The space includes the dragon gate, to enter the place -a big sculpture representing the dragon named Ladon, the guard of the Garden of the Hesperides─, and a smaller door with the representation of a lyre, in memory of the poetic inspiration of Jacint Verdaguer.
The restoration project includes the full recovery of the original architecture of Gaudí; regeneration of the Mediterranean garden at the gates and inspired by the poem LʼAtlàntida, by Jacint Verdaguer; replacement of the current walls of the space by a crystal fence that allows visitors see the garden from the outside and the restoration of two gates that correspond to the former building, also property of the UB and located at avinguda de Joan XXIII, at the entrance of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences, behind the Faculty of Biology.