Casa Vicens is promoting “Memories”, a project that seeks to compile and preserve the historical memory of Gaudí’s first house

This open collaborative project encourages everyone who has had any connection with Casa Vicens, from residents to neighbours, to participate, especially those who knew the site before its reopening as a house museum.

What do the Vicens family, the Herrero family, the Alsius family and the magazine Cavall Fort have in common? All of them have lived or operated out of Casa Vicens before it was restored and opened to the public as a house museum in 2017.

A collaborative project

Houses are living spaces, and this one in particular was a meeting point for many people in the Vila de Gràcia neighbourhood for decades. Much has been researched and written about how a young Antoni Gaudí designed Casa Vicens between 1883 and 1885, commissioned by the stock and currency broker Manel Vicens i Montaner. However, the house’s subsequent life is equally relevant: its first owner barely lived there for ten years. After his death, his widow Dolors Giralt sold it in 1899 to Antoni Jover i Puig, a doctor from Havana whose descendants lived in the house until 2014, when it was sold to begin the process of restoration and its subsequent opening as a house museum in 2017.

Over more than 100 years, Casa Vicens served as a private residence, the temporary headquarters of the children’s magazine Cavall Fort, the setting for Bigas Luna’s Angustia and a symbolic enclave of Carrer de les Carolines. Casa Vicens has witnessed countless memories and experiences, both of the families who lived there and of the neighbourhoods of Gràcia and Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.

The “Memories” project, promoted by Casa Vicens, aims to compile and preserve the personal memories of those who have maintained some kind of connection with the house in order to collaboratively construct a historical narrative that reflects the life and history of Gaudí’s first masterpiece.

The challenge

“Memories” is a project open to the public. Those who are familiar the house, and especially those who knew it before 2017, are invited to participate by sharing memories, testimonies or images.

In the words of Emili Masferrer, the director of Casa Vicens, “we encourage locals and entities engaged in historical preservation to participate in this collaborative project, with oral or visual memories, to recover the history of Casa Vicens”.

The project seeks to recover documentation concerning the house in private archives in order to preserve it and define the history of Casa Vicens in the 20th century. From memories of the Santa Rita celebrations to personal documents that feature the house, the project has been designed as a tool to prevent many experiences from disappearing with the passage of time, to rescue them from oblivion and to preserve memories before the people who hold them are lost.

The website http://www.casavicens.org/memories has been created for this purpose. On it, you can find out more about this project and how to participate.

Committed to its local surroundings

“Memories” is part of Casa Vicens’ commitment to recovering the cultural heritage related to the house and to Antoni Gaudí in order to pass it on to future generations in the best possible state. It also represents an example of a regenerative cultural tourism project and social responsibility, as it places the local community, especially the neighbourhoods of Gràcia and Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, at the centre of the story, while reinforcing the role of the house museum as a space for gathering, listening and engagement. In a context in which artificial intelligence is advancing at a dizzying pace, this UNESCO World Heritage Site is committed to preserving the emotional and historical links between architectural heritage and the collective memory of its surroundings.