Gaudí

As a result of documental research carried out, and for the first time, this exhibition explains that Gaudí built his first three buildings in Mataró: the house of Salvador Pagès (1878), the bleaching nave (1883) and the latrine edicule (1883); that Gaudí, then a young architect of 25 years old, took an interest in and contributed to improving the living and working conditions of the workers, and that none of this would have been possible without Salvador Pagès, the soul and leader of the cooperative society L’Obrera Mataronesa, who commissioned Gaudí to give shape to his cooperative ideal.

Gaudí laid out the urban development of L’Obrera's land into three well-defined spaces: production, residence and services.

It was through the commission of a cooperative that Gaudí built his first house; he experimented with the development of arches as supporting elements in the bleaching nave, and used ceramic tiles for the first time as a decorative element in the latrines.

Gaudí, Pagès and L’Obrera cannot be explained without one another in what was the beautiful and ephemeral dream of the most important production cooperative in our country in the second half of the 19th century. This activity is framed within the commemoration of the Gaudí Year.

Last updated: 11/05/2026