The estate of Dr. Pla, in the Guinardó, finally opens to the public with an initial selection of its exclusive collection of antiques
Mas Pla-Ravetllat-Barcelona
Barcelona gains a new cultural center on Saturday with the opening to the public of Mas Ravetllat-Pla, a huge estate of Guinardó untill now unexplored by the locals. Located opposite the new hospital of Sant Pau, battered contains 3.3 hectares of vegetation will become public park in the next few years and a double entry palace was home laboratory and Nuria Pla (1916-2011), pioneer pharmaceutical and collecting in Catalonia. The premiere awakens a huge buzz in the neighborhood, since for decades all kinds of shady circulated rumors about the past and future of this great land.
The property houses a valuable collection of antiques -more than 850 pieces- and staged as an exhibition open center dedicated to art and science. It was built in 1928 the architect Adolf Florensa noucentista for example, which built the Cambo House Laietana and restored Tinell Salo, the Drassanes and the cloister of the Cathedral-and it was always for private use. The Pla Ramon Armengol, Nuria Pla sole heir and current manager of the property, Foundation plans to allocate part of the collection rooms, bring other House Museum and recover or recreate the medical library and veterinary-pharmaceutical laboratory of the century custody today the Faculty of Medicine of the UB. The building is listed and needed major rehabilitation, in which the foundation has spent more than a million euros.
The first public open space in the exhibition hall on the ground floor. It will show an anthology of furniture eighty diverse aesthetics and function, which reveal how the Catalan and Spanish bourgeoisie of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lived. It can be visited free -Tuesday three days a week and Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning, always in groups of 10 people maximum and prior through the web of the foundation reserves. It is expected that about 500 people come every month for visits, but if demand increases could be extended opening hours. Antique furniture expert guides formed by the Estudi del Moble recognized association, explained to the audience the artistic value and curiosities of each object: secret compartments for jewelry, optical games with mirrors, hidden in desks, materials imported from overseas theaters … The stories can have a piece of furniture!
“A lot of antique pieces brought to this house, but Mrs Pla examined them carefully and buy only the truly exceptional,” says the lawyer Juan Ramon Ferrero, who runs the foundation and enforces the will of the owner very detailed. “I just wanted 100% original furniture: a single shooter that was spare and rejected them,” he says. For more than six decades enriched the collection with many different objects -Fitted, sculptures, chairs, mirrors, jewelry … – but the highlights were always sections of Spanish baroque table and cabinet or desk Salamanca, considered the most comprehensive in the world. In any international museum they would be in armored windows, but in the Ravetllat-Pla can be enjoyed just a few feet away.
Particularly noteworthy desk 1609 ivory and ebony, which can be admired in the video that accompanies this article. It represents the triumph of Felipe III through a detailed world map, recorded eight cities and all the portraits of the dynasty of Naples. “As it should be only 5 or 6 in the world,” says Miguel Angel Alarcia, Spanish antique furniture expert and adviser to the foundation. They also highlight the decorated cabinets with drawers and mirrors surprise, adds Monica Piera, president of Estudi del Moble and collaborator of the museum: “They were decorative objects for display, but with a component of scientific experimentation that has now completely lost in modern furniture “.
Courtesy Car Service Barcelona
EXECUTIVE CHAUFFEUR BARCELONA 