In 1917, in the Santa Elena d'Agell neighbourhood within the town of Cabrera de Mar, Mrs Teresa Amatller i Cros commissioned the architect Josep Sala to build a house, which was not finished until well into 1920.
History
The Amatller family had been chocolate-makers since 1797, and their surname was the brand name. In fact, in the nineteenth century, it became quite famous mostly from the advertisements of its products on posters, calendars and prints, which was a totally new advertising strategy. Today, they are highly prized by collectors, and they made Amatller a household name.
In fact, Antoni Amatller i Costa was a very prominent member of Catalonia's enlightened bourgeoisie. Specifically, he combined his work in industry with his artistic pursuits. This interest led his daughter, Teresa Amatller, to create the Amatller Institute of Hispanic Art, today known as Barcelona’s Casa Amatller. During the first 23 years of its existence, the Torre Ametller (or Torre Agell) in Cabrera de Mar was used exclusively as the family's summer home, until they allowed the Francoist authorities to use it. In 1943, the house became a school for nuns in the Company of Mary, and they refurbished it to house girls who were orphaned in the war.
During that period, arguing that it needed more space, the authorities built adjacent quarters, but the nuns abandoned the building to protest this enlargement. Thus, the Torre Ametller came to be run by a tenant farmer until the Government of Catalonia turned it into a youth hostel (1985).
Architecture
Torre Ametller is a large house built between 1917 and 1920, a patrician building falling fully within the Noucentista aesthetic. It combines classic elements with features borrowed from folk architecture, such as its semicircular entrance porch with Ionic columns, its corner gallery with semicircular arches, its lookout towers with pyramidal a roof and a prominent parapet, and the sgraffiti on the façades and corners.
As a whole, it is an eclectic, sumptuous building, yet it never departs from the balanced Noucentista ideal.
The architect Josep Sala began building it in 1917, but after a hiatus the architect Lluís Bonet i Garí took over and completed it in 1920.
One essential architectural feature of the Torre Ametller, which falls fully within Noucentista precepts, is the large garden surrounding the house, which was designed by Nicolau Rubió i Tudurí. It combines wooded areas and gardens and stands out for its stairs, fountains, water conduits and walls, as well as for its labyrinthine design, in which all the paths leaving from the house converge in the centre.
Construction halted between 29 November 1919 and 31 January 1920 owing to the workers’ strike, because they had not been paid their salaries for weeks.
He is the author of 27 books on African his hunting safaris and multiple journeys, along with novels, plays and stories, as well as essays on architecture and landscaping, including El parodic meridional, 15 del seu traçat i plantació. He also wrote more than 70 articles in Spanish and foreign publications.