Building of 20 dwellings between party walls in Ferran Street

It is impossible to separate the property subject to this project from Ferran Street as a connecting axis between the political center of the city and La Rambla, a recreational and prestigious axis in the years when Pau Turull's house will be built. In fact, the operation carried out by the Sociedad Catalana General del Crédito aimed at the urbanization of the section of Ferran Street, with an urbanism directed towards the more affluent classes who saw in Ferran Street a way to give prestige to their social imprint by building a house that would position them within the urban framework. This will be the case of the banker and businessman from Sabadell, Pau Turull, who took advantage of the real estate circumstances developed by the Sociedad Catalana General de Crédito to construct a certainly stately building, to which he applied a decoration and structural architecture based on iron, following the design of what had already been done in the nearby Pasaje del Crédito.

As for Ferran Street, in its initial stage, with many interruptions due to the political situation, it took until the 1860s to develop and connected with the Rambla at the new Plaza de Sant Jaume, where the neoclassical facade of the City Hall was built (1831-1847). In the following stages, the continuation of the transversal axis to the Plaza del Ángel, with Calle Jaume I, and later its extension, with Calle Princesa, will be part of a desire to make the old city more permeable to circulation and a clear operation to recover the center of Barcelona.

Pau Turull Comadran (1837-1892) was one of the partners of the Catalana General de Crédito, of which he would become president in 1891. Among his real estate holdings, this house on Ferran Street, number 34, stood out significantly. It was built by the master builder Joan Caballé Fabregas, who was active mainly in the city of Barcelona between 1855 and 1903.

Although a large part of the estate was used as residential space, we believe that the main and/or first floor was used by some banking entity as the headquarters of its operations, which would undoubtedly explain why, after the war, the first floor of the house became the headquarters of the Bankers' Union of Barcelona.

On the basement floor, the general archive, safes, lockers for the settlement of collectors, changing rooms, and restrooms will be located.

Finally, as an anecdote, it is worth noting that on the second floor, first door, the Catalan actor and comedian Joan Capri lived for a good part of his life.

It is a residential building between party walls, with 20 apartments, consisting of a basement, ground floor, mezzanine, and four upper floors, with a fifth and sixth floor set back from the facade. It stands out for the unified composition of the ground floor and mezzanine, with large openings featuring metal beams and pillars, with railings and grilles also made of cast iron; and for the main portal, in the center of the facade, two stories high, with a semicircular arch framed by stone moldings and corbels with ornamental motifs. It is also worth noting the main door, made of wood and glass with artistic grilles.

The composition of the facade is organized with a central vertical axis of symmetry, which coincides with the position of the residents' staircase, featuring superimposed vertical openings; these are balconies with a flat lintel and a stone slab on corbels, with an overhang that gradually reduces on the upper floors, all with iron railings and continued on the first floor. At the same time, it features elements that reinforce the horizontal composition, such as the cornice and the frieze, and the impost with an ornamented frieze on each floor.

The treatment of the facade surface is smooth stucco with horizontal division in the central axis and at the ends.

It is worth highlighting, first, the initiative to adapt the rehabilitation proposal as much as possible to the localized remnants, and second, the willingness to preserve the most significant elements of the original work.

The project plans to conserve all possible Nolla mosaics on both floors of the second floor.

On the other hand, the project also plans, as much as possible, the restoration of the original molded ceilings, especially those that have been considered more relevant in terms of decoration.