Catalan Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau was an artistic current that emerged in Europe in the late nineteenth century, with differing singularities in each country. In Catalonia, it was more than just an aesthetic movement, acquiring an important social side that aimed to develop a modern, cosmopolitan national culture.

The movement stood out for the quality of the architecture that aspired to be a total artwork, with a great display of applied and decorative arts, such as ceramics, stained glass, wrought iron, furniture and hydraulic tiled floors. It recovered old crafts and placed them alongside materials produced in modern industries. It also incorporated new construction techniques and innovative materials such as cast iron beside traditional systems such as flat-brick vaults. In Catalan Art Nouveau architecture, aesthetics was just as important as functionality.
Modernisme has its best works in Barcelona, including the former Hospital de Sant Pau, the work of Lluís Domènech i Montaner.