15th Barcelona Modernista Fair 2019

We will be holding the 15th edition of our Fair on 31 May and 1 and 2 June, 2019, as always to coincide with the celebrations of the Festa Major of the Dreta de l’Eixample and located primarily in Carrer Girona, between Avinguda Diagonal and Carrer València.

The Fair is this year dedicated to the Modernista architect Josep Maria Jujol to mark the 140th anniversary of his birth and celebration of Jujol Year, launched by Sant Joan Despí Town Council, where he was the municipal architect from 1926 to 1949. For this reason, the Town Council will come for the first time to the Fair and set up a stand to promote its Modernista heritage. Josep Maria Jujol Jr. will tell us in an interview in the Fair’s magazine that “Jujol was a genius who was ahead of his time and put colour into Gaudí’s work”, and you can also read an the article by Carlos Español, from the Department of Culture of the Sant Joan Despí Town Council, about his work to learn more.

A first this year is the publication of the Modernista Fair’s sticker album, which children will be able to complete by collecting the stickers at the various stands. The idea is to publish one each year based on the character, building or event to which the Fair is dedicated: this year coinciding with Jujol. The idea has come from Sant Joan Despí Town Council, which will also publish one on the occasion of Jujol Year, although aimed at students from the town’s schools.

Another novelty is an exhibition of vehicles from the Plataforma per a la Defensa del Patrimoni Històric and Cau del Jubilat of the Barcelona Fire Brigade, which will be bringing a hand pump from 1839 that was used during Modernisme, a pump from 1887 and a Genoveva fire truck, including horses and mannequins to recreate the animals that pulled it and the firemen who drove it. But the most spectacular thing will be the demonstration of how the 1939 pump worked: come and see how fires were extinguished between 1839 and 1922 and you can test the strength of your arms by pumping water at 200 litres per minute!

On Friday, the Teatre Dona i Descabellades association will stage a march like the ones held in the early 20th century that demanded the vote for women, and they will show us their creativity with a recital of poems on the work of Jujol on Saturday.

Look out for the Modernista tourist during the Fair, a character with a top hat and regal moustache visiting the various Modernista fairs in the province with a powerful spyglass and ramshackle travelling bag. If you see him, take a photo with him and post it with the hashtag #elTuristaModernista! This activity is organised by the Barcelona Provincial Council to promote the province’s Modernista fairs.

Other novelties include the presentation of a reproduction of the demolished waterfall at Casa Vicens in the AGBAR Water Museum, with its stand displaying a physical object of this wonderful work by Gaudí. Melilla will screen videos of its rich and extensive Modernista heritage and the “Recuperamos el Taller Masriera” platform, formed by the Neighbourhood Association of the Dreta de l’Eixample, Òmnium Eixample and Casal de Joves la Dreixa, will be staging activities to demand that this work, a former artists’ workshop owned by the jeweller, painter and set designer Lluís Masriera, becomes a cultural facility for the neighbourhood. And there will also be a new show for the kids to laugh at and enjoy: Ja arriba el tramvia! (Here comes the tram now!).

There will be four talks in the Fair’s marquee this year: on Friday, “The textile colonies and world of women” by a regular at the Fair, Josep Lluís Moya, and “Modernisme and Barcelona’s Fire Brigade” by Josep Maria Royes, Fire Brigade technician and Pere González, retired Fire Brigade corporal, with a description of what the barracks and tools were like and their evolution over this period of time; and on Saturday, “Garden of light: stained glass in Modernista furniture” by Núria Gil Farré, PhD in Art History, from the Estudi del Moble association, and “Jujol, in the shadow of Antoni Gaudí” by art historian Alba Vendrell.

You can also visit the Mercat de la Concepció to see its collection of Modernista food posters, the Modernisme in the Maresme stands to see an exhibition of the neuler trade, the Tomàs Balbeny Archive Museum for a hat workshop, or say hello to the “big-head” of Lluís Domènech i Montaner that will come from Canet de Mar or take one of the Jujol Routes that we will be organising.

And by the way, we have a new decoration in the photographer’s tent, so come dressed in period costume and we will take a photo of you!

Come and enjoy the Fair!