Castle of the Three Dragons

The Castle of the Three Dragons (Catalan: Castell dels Tres Dragons, Spanish: Castillo de los Tres Dragones), is the popular name given to the modernisme building built between 1887–1888 as a Café-Restaurant for the 1888 Universal Exposition of Barcelona by Lluís Domènech i Montaner. This name was probably adopted from the 1865 play by Serafí Pitarra.

The Castle of the Three Dragons in winter.

History

In its time it was one of the main buildings of the exhibition, and before it the Palace of Fine Arts had ceased to exist. It was at the end of the main street running from the Arc de Triomf to the Parc de la Ciutadella. Work began in September 1887, but due to many delays, it was not ready on the day of the inauguration on April 8 and was delayed until August 17. For this reason Domènech i Montaner resigned as the responsible architect.[1]

At the end of exhibition, Domenech himself installed an industrial arts workshop related to architecture, with the possible collaboration of Antoni Maria Gallissà i Soqué. Later it was dedicated to museum purposes as a museum of history, archeology, biology and natural sciences. During the Spanish Civil War it was closed, after suffering some damage by bombing aviation Franco. From 1942 to 1945 it was chair of Social Aid to be definitely aimed at Museum of Zoology. In the 1980s it was restored by architects Cristian Cirici, Pep Bonet and Carles Bassó.[1] From 1920 to 2010 it hosted the Zoology Museum of Barcelona. In 2010, that museum was dismantled and the zoology collections were transferred to the new Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona (in Catalan: Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona) at the Forum Building.[2]

Building

It is built with brick and sheet iron, and is a castle-shaped building crowned with battlements. The floor is almost square, with four towers at the corners and perimeter walkways running between a double facade. It has an innovative transparent structure of brick and iron, something similar to that which appeared in the proposal by Hendrik Petrus Berlage in his project for the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

The ceramic decoration-patterned Joan Llimona and Alexandre de Riquer (1888), and Pius Font i Quer and Joan Baptista Aguilar-Amat (1927), sculpture by Antoni Vilanova, Alfons execution Juyol (1888) and Gonzalez Brothers (1927 ) and i Pujol ceramic Bausis-is located on the battlements and shield-shaped panels to the top, that break in blue on white a naturalistic program of plants and animals, including a number of drinks and liquors. The windows, missing hand, are the work of Antoni Rigalt i Blanch.

gollark: I've been deploying bees into apiospace, as they say.
gollark: Greetings.
gollark: When they do slightly understand them, they do wrong things too.
gollark: Just as they do not understand many things.
gollark: Clearly Lyricly doesn't understand optics.

See also
  • List of Modernisme buildings in Barcelona

References
  1. Escudos del Castell dels Tres Dragons
  2. Quelart, R. (28 de mayo de 2010) El museo de zoología de Barcelona cierra las puertas La Vanguardia. Cultura.

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