Masó's Girona

Rafael Masó I Valentí was born in Ballesteries street in Girona on August the 16^th 1880.

He studied in the “Germans Maristes” school in the Cathedral quarter and became a high school graduate in 1895 in the “Institut de Girona”.

In 1906 when he was already an architect he decided to practice his profession in the city where he was brought up. He settled in Girona as an architect but also as a driving force of the civic and cultural life of the city.

He was representative of the political and cultural period known as “noucentisme” and he left an impressive legacy of architectural works willing to get involved in the modern transformation of a country.

This way, Rafael Masó combined traditional and popular elements with renewal trends of his time to the point of achieving one the most consistent contributions from Catalonia to the European architecture of his times.

Initiated in the Modernism, he saw the crisis of this movement and he joined in the “noucentisme” with his own personality traits and under the influence of the domestic English architecture. We highlight in this guide some of his most representative works in Girona city.

3 important things to see

1. Casa Masó

Casa Masó (1911-1917). This is the house where he was born in Ballesteries street. He projected its alterations and joined it to two neighboring houses. Nowadays it is the Casa-Museu Rafael Masó where there can be admired not only the inside layout and the magnificent covered gallery that faces the Onyar river but also the furnishing of his age and some of the architect’s personal objects.

2. Farinera Teixidor

Farinera Teixidor (1910-1911). Two floors building joined by a parabolic arch which separated the industry from the house. It belongs to the architect’s modernist period with obvious influences by Gaudí resulting in a set full of fantasy in which the pottery, the glazed pottery, the woodwork and the forge play an important role. Currently the building is the newspaper El Punt-Avui headquarters.

3. La Casa de la Punxa

La Casa de la Punxa (1918-1922). Originally the ground floor worked as a warehouse and the top floors were destined to housing. It belongs to the Masó’s “noucentista” period and it reveals through its simplicity the general reconsideration of the architect’s career and the incorporation of Europe-inspired formal solutions. From 1980, the building is the “Col·legi d’Aparelladors i Arquitectes Tècnics de Girona”.