The guide masters all languages but will conduct the visit in Catalan, and has so much experience in modernist spaces that she seems to have an answer for everything. It seems that the Palau was built so quickly, in only three years (1905-1908) that, as it was being designed, planned, and built, it was also being sculpted, forged, chiseled, painted. It was a presentist work, in which decisions were often made in situ and negotiated between architect and artisans.
Domènech i Montaner had an artisanal vision of architecture and, therefore, this suited him well: apart from the plans, he made decisions from the space itself and with the ability to make last-minute corrections. This required a very intimate complicity with the artisans, all of them, Domènech included, unaware that they were building a future world cultural heritage site.
The visit, curated by the excellent, unstoppable, expert, and committed Dr. Mireia Freixa, also unfolds verbally and in situ and almost in an artisanal way. Only an optional digital tablet, in case the visitor wishes to delve into a specific aspect or enlarge a photo. Starting with the first stone, still visible in the rehearsal room, and continuing with the original senyera that is visible in a display case in the cafeteria, with the obligatory reference to its designer (Antoni Gallissà, in 1896) and to the authors of the famous song (Millet and Maragall).
Here is the first thing I didn't know: the banner shows the founding date of the Orfeó, in 1891, and the designer himself was a member of it. The next thing I'm told is that the cafeteria was an office space. I tell them not to fool me, that it's not April Fool's Day, but it turns out to be true: even the luxurious bar in the center had not been a bar at all when the Palau was built. I'll pretend I believe it, I think, knowing that they know much more than I do.
An architectural reference as well, the 20-year-old expansion of the spaces where the church of Sant Francesc de Paula used to be, which also led to the loss of the almost noucentista painting that was on the left wall of the main entrance, a work by Miquel Massot, and which they apparently keep in their heritage archive. I would have sworn that a drawing by Gaudí went there, because I heard it somewhere, but I must be mistaken, or it never ended up being there. But from the vestibule we pass to the staircase, as luxurious as it is ignoble (without gold or silver, but of iron and glass and stone), where Joan Vilella intervened in what refers to the glass of the balustrades (who was a bottle manufacturer, and who should not be confused with the bust of Carlos Gurmesind Vidiella, in the middle of the right staircase); Josep Orriols in terms of ceramics and decorative flowers, and Domingo Pascual, blacksmith and locksmith, in what refers to the structural iron visible in the inner part of the glass. Craft, craft and craft.
As for the columns of the first-floor balcony, next to the Lluís Millet Hall, we never have access to it when we go to a concert (for capacity reasons), but we do if we sign up for this visit, where we learn about both the author of its mosaics (the ceramist Lluís Bru, who used to be a set designer and who, therefore, we now understand a little bit of everything), and his method: designing the mosaic on large papers on the floor, like a stage set, and then assembling the mosaic on top of the drawing to then embed everything into the column.
We also discover that the female figures of the main hall's skylight (a work by the stained-glass company Rigalt y Granell) surely emulate the female hearts of the Orfeó, and that the materials surrounding the hall (glass, ceramics), far from playing against the acoustics, play in favor due to the rounded shape of the auditorium. As for the sculptural stone ensemble that frames the stage (Beethoven, Clavé, Valkyries), as is known, it is a work by Dídac Massana and Pau Gargallo, while the famous muses are a work by Eusebi Arnau (the mosaic, however, is by the mosaicist Mario Maragliano). All of them directed by the great orchestra conductor Lluís Domènech i Montaner.
This type of visit is about discovering not only what we didn't know, but also discovering that we didn't know everything by far.That I am later reminded that the stone figurehead that forms the corner of the main facade is by Miquel Blai (with referenced sponsor), or that I discover the throne of the Jocs Florals (Homeland, Faith, Love) that resides next to the deactivated bar on the second floor and on the hydraulic tile (and cement, to save costs) floors by E.F. Escofet, or that reference is made to the contribution of president Joaquim Cabot for the Palau to see the light (along with many other donations from diverse people), no longer distracts me from my main discovery of the day:two muses I didn't know existed.
Indeed, hidden behind the columns that Beethoven and Clavé raise on the main stage, making a hidden company to all the other muses on stage, it turns out that on both sides there are two more (one with a kind of aulos or double flute, the other with a Greek cithara) that were invisible to me from the first day I set foot in the Palau with my mother until now. And that's what these types of visits are about: discovering not only what we didn't know, but discovering, as always in life, that we didn't know everything by far.