Concerning the «obra nova» project of the Palau de la Generalitat. The «Memorial of 1603»

Abstract

When in 1602 the deputies ordered a new revision concerning to the work of widening of the Palau de la Generalitat, what they're really doing is questioning the initial project of Pere Blai. A large number of criteria is being used according to a new visual pattern, dating back from the Renaissance, which has its emphassis in the way things are being looked at. Its requirements are: the economical cost, the building visualization —the value of image as a mirror of the civil power —and its individualization within the urban network —it is from here, where the purpose of greeing up the space of a square, springs out. The Memorial of 1603 gets into a long intricated sequence. The importance of this document is not only due to its value of projectual and constructive information itself, but also to the exegesis of the classical model, of its range of comprehension and use at the beginning of the 17th century in the Principat of Catalonia.