DOMÈNECH I MONTANER, Lluís
Catalan architect. He took a degree in architecture in 1873 at the University of Madrid and quickly became well-known, thanks to successes in public competitions. In 1875, he began a long teaching period at the architectural school in Barcelona, becoming director in 1910.
He built the Grand Hotel (destroyed) and Café-Restaurant for the World Exposition in Barcelona in 1888, otherwise, his work was mainly private houses (e.g. Casa Navàs, Reus; Casa Fuster, Barcelona). With its polychromy and ornamentation and appropriate structural solutions achieved on a difficult site, the Palau de la Música, Barcelona (1908) is his most outstanding work. The Hospital de Sant Pau complex, Barcelona (1910), demonstrates his skill in combining brick and stone and employing ceramic decoration.
His style was imbued with Catalan Gothic architecture, which he varied with elements of Classicism, Renaissance and Japanese art. He is considered one of the protagonists of Catalan architectural Modernism, characterized by the doctrine of Rationalism and contrasted with the more expressionist Modernism headed by Gaudí. His essay “En busca de una arquitectura nacional” in the magazine La Renaixença (February 1878) proposed the renewal of tradition and upheld the authenticity of architecture from a rational point of view.