Castle of the Three Dragons

The Castle of the Three Dragons in winter.

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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 novel by Serafí Pitarra.

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, and suffered many delays, and so, on April 8, the day of the inauguration, it was not ready, delaying its opening 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 Tighten. Later it was dedicated to museum purposes, being 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] Until 2010 it hosted zoology collections of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Catalonia (in Catalan: Museu Nacional de Ciències Naturals de Catalunya), when they were transferred to 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 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.

References

Coordinates: 41°23′17″N 2°11′00″E / 41.3881°N 2.1834°E / 41.3881; 2.1834