The most significant Catalan industrial architecture is linked to Modernisme , an artistic movement that brought together tradition, culture and an understanding, at all levels, with the individualism and romanticism of Art Nouveau and which lasted some forty years, until the arrival of Noucentisme, characterised by classicism and functionality.
In the field of industrial architecture, there are for me three names with particular relevance today:
One of these is Josep Amargós i Samaranch (1849-1918), who designed for example the Torre de les Aigües, or water-tower, on Tibidabo (1902), a familiar feature of the Barcelona skyline looking towards the Collserola range.
Another is Rafael Gustavino Moreno (1842-1908), one of whose most important works is the Escola Industrial de Barcelona in Carrer Urgell, in the premises of the former Batlló factory. Moreno was a virtuoso exponent of the Catalan vaults which still inspire many structural forms.
And finally, Lluís Muncunill i Parellada (1868-1931), creator of one of the most brilliant and representative works of industrial Modernisme (1907-1908), now occupied by the Museu Nacional de la Ciència i de la Tècnica de Catalunya.
This restoration project adopted a criterion I believe to have been entirely appropriate, that of trying to recover the original simplicity and purity of a building which belongs to Muncunill's most refined style, the Muncunill of stuccoed facades and curved outlines.
Hence, it was decided to demolish all the structures that had been added to it, isolate the Museum visually from the adjacent buildings, reconstruct the original facades and restore the vaults, including the skylights, with the core idea of the project always in mind: to create a basement beneath the mill in which to accommodate the closed spaces, thus retaining the unobstructed view of the hall and the sea of vaults that forms the roof, still one of the pre-eminent images of Modernisme.