I. Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Overview of the Work

The architect Josep Maria Jujol i Gibert was one of the leading figures of Catalan architecture in early twentieth-century Spain, and, following the evolution of architectural currents, was an architect who pursued his activity during the period spanning the final phase of Catalan Modernisme to Noucentisme. In addition to his architectural practice, he served as a lecturer at his alma mater, the Barcelona School of Architecture. In the early years of his career he worked as an assistant to Antoni Gaudí, and his best-known collaborative works include the balcony railings of the Casa Milà and the mosaic bench surfaces of the Parque Güell. Among his independent works are numerous residential buildings in the city of Barcelona and its surroundings, as well as several churches, including restoration interventions.

Although Jujol was one of the representative figures of Catalan Modernisme, no study has hitherto been conducted that analyses his work and personality from an architectural and scholarly perspective. The author of the present work has participated in a series of research projects on Jujol in the laboratory of Professor Masayuki Irie, in the Department of Architecture of the Faculty of Creative Engineering at Waseda University. In the present work, drawing on architectural surveys and primary sources such as the numerous plans and drawings left by Jujol, the author seeks to reflect on the aesthetic characteristics of Jujol's architectural works; likewise, taking into account the few writings Jujol left behind, the author also seeks to reflect on his architectural ideas.

Chapter 1 of the Introduction first describes the overview of the present work; it then sets out how Jujol is recognised and evaluated in contemporary Spanish and Catalan architectural circles, given that in Japan there has been a tendency to emphasise his role as Gaudí's assistant. It subsequently presents the life of Jujol with reference to an interview with the architect's son and to the biography written by him.

Chapter 2 of the Introduction describes the trajectory of Jujol scholarship from his death in 1949 to the present day. It then indicates the research methodology and the content and location of the primary sources consulted in the preparation of the present work.

Chapter 1 of the Main Part, with the aim of contextualising Jujol's works socially, analyses Spanish and Catalan society from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century through an examination of the interrelationships among politics, economics, industrialisation, nationalism, and cultural movements, addressing the transformations of Catalan society—in particular the emergence and rise of Catalanism and its subsequent decline.

Chapter 2 of the Main Part, with the aim of concretely analysing Jujol's architectural ideas and aesthetic characteristics, first organises the primary sources—the few writings and articles that Jujol left—and reflects on his architectural thought. Second, Jujol's architectural activity is divided into three periods: the <First Period>, centred primarily on his activity as an assistant to other architects led by Gaudí; the <Second Period>, in which he was most active as an independent architect; and the <Third Period>, in which, following the death of Gaudí, he produced several works of a classicising character and undertook church restorations, among other projects. The primary sources consisting of plans and drawings left by Jujol are compiled, and his quality as a draughtsman—one of his defining characteristics—is examined.

Chapter 3 of the Main Part examines the representative works of each period.

Chapter 4 of the Main Part takes the <Casa Bofarull>, one of Jujol's representative works, as a special object of study as the synthetic work of his architectural activity; drawing on Jujol's autograph plans and drawings related to this work and on the results of the measured survey carried out by the authors, a synthetic analysis is conducted.

The Conclusion presents a summary of the research findings and the analyses of each chapter as the culmination of the entire work.

1.2 The Recognition of Jujol in Spain and Catalonia

Jujol was born in 1879 in the city of Tarragona, in the region of Catalonia, Spain, and died in 1949. Although in Japan Jujol is generally known as a disciple or assistant of the architect Antoni Gaudí, in his native country of Spain—and especially in the autonomous community of Catalonia, with Barcelona at its centre—he was already recognised and studied as one of the architects who played a leading role in Spanish and Catalan architecture during the first half of the twentieth century. As evidence of this, one may cite the existence of the <Fuente monumental de la Plaza de España>, built in the centre of the city to commemorate the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition. This work, although clothed in a neoclassical design different from Jujol's customary style, has become one of his representative works, familiar even to those not specialised in architecture in Barcelona.

After graduating from the Barcelona School of Architecture—which, together with the Madrid School of Architecture (now the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid), was the pre-eminent institution of higher architectural education in Spain at that time—Jujol served as a lecturer at that institution from 1914 to 1944. Among the graduates of the school who attended Jujol's classes are architects who later promoted Spanish and Catalan architecture, including Lluís Bonet Garí, Josep Torres Clavé, Josep Lluís Sert, and Josep Antoni Coderch.

1.3 The Life of Jujol

The following offers a sketch of Jujol's life based on the knowledge gained from the biography written by his son and from the interview conducted with him.

Jujol's father, Andreu, was a primary school teacher. It is recounted that from a very early age Jujol demonstrated an unmistakable talent for drawing. Tarragona is an ancient city whose origins date back to the Roman Empire; it contains Roman remains such as an aqueduct, an amphitheatre, and city walls, as well as a cathedral built in the twelfth century, and it is said that Jujol spent his childhood observing these with wonder. Later in life, Jujol advocated for the conservation and restoration of the Roman amphitheatre of Tarragona, and on the pedestal of his work the "Commemorative Fountain of the Universal Exposition at the Plaza de España (Barcelona)" he inscribed "S.P.Q.B. (initials of Senatus Populusque Barcinonensis)", following the model of the ancient Romans—a gesture that demonstrates he retained throughout his life his admiration for ancient Rome. It is also recounted that he was not only able to read Latin but could even speak it. Furthermore, in the 1920s he learned Italian at the Italian Cultural Institute on Calle Méndez Vigo in Barcelona, eventually speaking it with the same fluency as his mother tongue.

The mountains of his native Tarragona create a landscape of rugged and arid rock formations combined with lush vegetation, and it is recounted that on his visits to his homeland in later years what he most enjoyed was walking among the rocky outcrops covered with carob trees, gorse, and rosemary.

At the age of nine, Jujol moved with his family to the town of Gràcia on the outskirts of Barcelona, following his father's posting, and he would walk to school in the Eixample district, which at that time was still on the periphery of Barcelona. Urban development in that district had begun in that period, and later, at the age of fourteen, after moving to the Carrer dels Abaixadors in the interior of Barcelona, he continued to walk to Eixample. His route to school ran from the narrow Carrer dels Abaixadors, through the Gothic Quarter, past the Plaza del Àngel, along the Carrer de Tapineria towards the Porta de la Bisbe and the Ramblas, and on to the Plaza de la Universitat. It is recounted that the young Jujol observed all the old buildings he encountered along this route, paying particular attention to the Gothic arches visible from the Carrer de Tapineria. His secondary school years coincided with the construction of numerous Modernista buildings in Barcelona. It is not difficult to imagine that the young Jujol witnessed all of this.

Jujol entered the Barcelona School of Architecture in 1896. The architect Josep Maria Pericàs, a friend of Jujol's since 1889 and a fellow student at the School of Architecture, stated: "He was not a person who drew attention to himself. He was calm and well-mannered." and "What we all admired was his memory, and above all his ability to draw."

During his student years he began to work with the architects Antoni Maria Gallissà and Josep Font, and around 1906 he began to work with Gaudí. His collaboration with Gaudí continued even after he graduated from the School of Architecture and obtained his professional qualification, but in 1908 he completed his first effectively independent work, the <Teatro de la Asociación Obrera de Tarragona (Teatro Metropol)>, initiating his activity as an independent architect. The period that followed up to Gaudí's death in 1926 was the era in which Jujol most energetically produced works of characteristic and singular morphology. In 1927 he married Teresa Gibert Mosera, from which union were born one son and two daughters.

With the death of Gaudí in 1926 as the precipitating event, the era of Modernisme also moved towards its end, and the period in which Jujol deployed his creative activity with greatest energy came to a close. Nevertheless, Jujol's design activity did not cease by any means; from that point onwards he also produced large-scale works that he had not previously undertaken, such as the Spanish Pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition and the commemorative fountain that still stands today as a landmark of the city of Barcelona.

The period of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the years that followed were, as for many Catalans, difficult times for Jujol. Within a socially and economically challenging context, Jujol produced several works, including church restorations. Under these circumstances, with his health gradually deteriorating, Jujol died in 1949.

1.4 Summary

Chapter 1 of the Introduction first described the overview of the present work; it then, drawing on the biography written by Jujol's son and on the knowledge gained from the interview conducted with him, sketched the life of Jujol and described the character of his native city of Tarragona and the vestiges of ancient Rome that formed the background of his architectural activity, as well as the situation of Barcelona during its period of great urban development, to which he subsequently moved. It then chronologically described the process following his entry into the Barcelona School of Architecture, his relationship with architects such as Gaudí, and his activity as an independent architect; it also organised the influence on Jujol himself of the end of Catalan Modernisme following Gaudí's death, his subsequent activity, and political and social changes such as the Spanish Civil War.