Dalí’s birthplace will be rehabilitated.
Dalí signature
Twenty years after the Figueres Town Council bought the house where Salvador Dali was born, finally it seems that the rehabilitation project to turn it into a cultural center of reference. The Ministry of Culture is willing to include a grant of 500,000 euros in the 2016 budget to begin work and the city of Figueres assume the remaining cost of the reform valued at 2,511,000.
Last week the mayor of Figueres Marta Felip visited in Madrid, the Institute of Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Education and Culture, where he met with the deputy general manager Alfonso Muñoz Cosme.
The talks are the continuation of a separate interview that took place a few months ago between the mayor herself and the then Minister of Culture José Ignacio Wert and are part of an initiative that has been supported by the deputy of the PP by Concepció Veray Girona.
Marta Felip expected that after the tender process may lower its cost slightly and hoped to get the involvement of the private sector through sponsorship of a club, for which he will begin a round of contacts with stakeholders in the tourism sector. In any case, it considers that the approximate cost of 1.8 million remaining is acceptable to the City Council in three years. Although the museum should then apply. The purpose of the mayor is already include a round at the 2016 investment plan to be adopted in the coming weeks. “Our goal is about the end of 2018”.
Dalí’s father in 1900 rented a flat in the street Monturiol, No. 6, winning the notary in Figueres Square and moved there with his wife, who had just married. In this house a first child, also named Salvador, who died at 22 months was born. The May 11, 1904 Salvador Dali was born another, which would become the famous painter. In 1908 he was born his sister Anna Maria. The father was the notary on the ground floor and is communicated with an internal staircase to the mezzanine, where the family lived. Just above did the Matas, who had come from Argentina, with a daughter, Ursula Matas, according Eugeni d’Ors with its beauty inspired the character of The Ben Planted. And one floor up Dalí’s grandmother and a single mother sister settled, though often made life on the mezzanine sliding balcony that had a four-meter wide overlooking a large garden Abadal-Fonsdeviela family, Owners of the entire building.
It was at the time a house in the adjoining garden, which blocked the view from the balcony was built, when Dalí changed housing in 1912, and moved a little further, in 10 of the Monturiol street , that Dalí dubbed the genie, because there had been born inventor of the submarine Narcís Monturiol, the poet Carles Fages de Climent, historian Alexandre Deulofeu and himself.
The building, whose structure and façade have been preserved almost intact, is a work of modernist architect Josep Azemar, and is part of a set of listed buildings that have been preserved in this street. Since 1961 has a plaque recalling that Dalí was born here, placed by Mayor Ramon Guardiola.
The house was owned by the Marquise de la Torre, married to the leader of the Liga, Raimon d’Abadal, and their descendants ended up selling it to the city of Figueres: first the mezzanine and ground floor (the mayor Marià Lorca, 1995) and later the rest of the block (the mayor Joan Armangué in 2000). In 2004 the rehabilitation of the facade and roof and in 2007 undertook, being mayor Santi Vila, the Minister of Housing, Carme Chacon, promised to pay reform, but since replaced the promise faded.
Uses the plan developed in 2008-2010 plans to establish in the ground floor a reception area, bookshop and tour desk; on the mezzanine, rather than rebuild housing it is to recover the memory of Dalí biopic; the first floor is a space for thematic exhibitions of historical recovery of characters and elements linked to Dali Figueres; The second floor is devoted to proposals of contemporary art and culture, and the roof will be reserved for gazebo, bar and rest area. The objective is to recover a heritage building linked to the artist’s childhood and at the same time, get that million annual visitors attracted by the Dali museum have another reason to prolong their stay in the city.
Courtesy Car Service Barcelona
EXECUTIVE CHAUFFEUR BARCELONA 