Itinerary: Modern Housing in Cadaqués

Cadaqués is a town characterised by its geographical location on the Cap de Creus, with very difficult access and spectacular rocky landscapes. Before the Spanish Civil War, Cadaqués was earning fame because of Salvador Dalí, who used its landscapes, especially Port Lligat, as the setting and backdrop for many of his paintings. Artists like Luís Buñuel and Federico García Lorca gathered there.

Beginning in the 1950s, Cadaqués became an important cultural centre where figures from the artistic avant-garde, drawn in by Dalí’s imaginary, came together, including Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Mary Fugazzola, among others. Some of the architects who joined this select group, especially Lanfranco Bombelli and Peter Harnden, took inspiration from the well-preserved, picturesque town centre and began to design a new kind of architecture which, although modern, maintained absolute respect for the local vernacular architecture. Among the Catalan architects, Federico Correa and Alfonso Milà were the first to build in Cadaqués, with a head-on opposition to the “poorly named modern house” which they called a “Cadaqués-style house”. The Casa Villavecchia was their first important work, which ushered in a golden age of modern Catalan architecture concentrated in this enclave on the Costa Brava. It was an old three-storey house with views of the sea, to which another half-storey was added to create a porch and a terrace that appears as a large opening in the façade. The famous Casa Senillosa by Coderch and Valls drew inspiration from this early modern house. Magnificent examples of modern urban and suburban architecture began emerging in subsequent years. Notable examples include the Jiménez del Pulgar chalet, by Barba Corsini, and the Casa Rumeu by Correa and Milà. Recent doctoral dissertations, like the one by Marc Arnal focusing on the work of Harden and Bombelli, have delved into the study of the architecture of Cadaqués and its close relationship with the artistic avant-gardes of the mid-20th century. 

Roger Subirà

Bibliography

ARNAL, Marc, L’art de viure: Peter Harnden, Lanfranco Bombelli i les cases per a artistes a Cadaqués, Comanegra, Barcelona, 2021.

BATES, Stephen, Lineage and legacy: a certain modernism in Cadaqués, Quart Publishers, Lucerne, 2021.

NACO, Alegre, The modern architecture of Cadaqués:1955-71, Apartamento Publishing/COAC, Barcelona 2020.

COSTA, Xavier, LANDROVE, Susana, eds., Registro DOCOMOMO Ibérico. La vivienda moderna, 1925-1965, Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, Barcelona, 2009.

AA VV, El Cadaqués de Peter Harnden i Lanfranco Bombelli, COAC, Barcelona, 2002.

AA VV, Correa & Milà, COAC, Barcelona, 1997.

RUIZ MILLET, Joaquim, Barba Corsini Arquitectura 1953-1994, Galería H2O, Barcelona, 1995.

TERRADAS I MUNTAÑOLA, Esteve, Cadaqués: laboratorio del realismo doméstico en Cataluña, ETSA, Barcelona, 1993.

FOCHS, Carles, J. A. Coderch de Sentmenat, 1913-1984, Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 1989.