- Museum
Museum
About the museum
Vil·la Casals
Vil·la Casals, the house which Pau Casals built in the seaside quarter of Sant Salvador, three kilometres from the urban core of the town of El Vendrell, is today the site of the Pau Casals Museum. Originally conceived as a little summer house at the southern end of the beach, the villa underwent diverse interventions in the course of the years, becoming a notable edifice with a harmonious garden bounded by a concert hall and diverse rooms for the display of Casals' art collection.
Chronology
- 1908
- The architect Francisco Solà i Gené prepares the first urban development plan of the seaside quarter of Sant Salvador. Pau Casals purchases some plots on which to build a house.
- 1909
- In November Pau Casals signs the contract for the construction of the house with the builder Josep Carreras and the architect Francisco Solà.
- 1910
- The house begins to be built in January and it is completed at the end of the year. It is formed by a two-story central body with a porch overlooking the Mediterranean sea.
- 1911
- Pau Casals spends his first summer at the house, with his mother and brothers.
- 1912
- Casals spends the summer at Sant Salvador with Guilhermina Suggia and his friends the pianists Donald F. Tovey, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Enric Granados and his wife.
- 1915
- A tennis court is built in the eastern part of the property in September.
- 1916
- Pau Casals buys the adjoining plot to the west and has a vegetable garden and a flower garden planted there.
- 1924
- Permits are requested for the building of the guest houses on the other side of the garden. They are not completed until 1929.
- 1928
- Reform of the house's façade. The railings of the terrace and the porch are replaced by a balustrade of green glazed ceramic.
- 1931
- At the end of the year Casals commissions the enlargement and reform of the house to the architect Antoni Puig Gairalt. The reform is set clearly within the "Noucentista" ("1900s Style") aesthetic.
- 1932
- The house's reform begins. The work comprises the new east wing, a garage, the garden, the reform of the stables and the old pantry, the Vinya de Dalt farmhouse, and the watering system.
- 1935
- The Concert Hall and the Vigatà Hall are designed. A splendid set of 18th-century paintings by Francesc Plà "El Vigatà" is installed in the Vigatà Hall. Josep Clarà's "Apollo" takes its place in the central part of the wall of the sculpture gallery.
- 1939
- In the month of January, shortly after the house's completion, Pau Casals goes into exile. Pau's brother Lluís and his family would care for the house until 1976.
- 1974
- After the death of Pau Casals in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1973, the Vigatà Hall, the Music Room and the Hall of Sentiment (transformed into a picture gallery) are opened to the public.
- 1976
- Inauguration of the house museum, now managed by the Pau Casals Foundation, which was created in 1972.
- 1996
- The house museum is closed to the public in order to carry out a far-reaching rehabilitation.
- 2001
- The new period of the museum, which adopts its final name of Vil·la Casals-Pau Casals Museum, is inaugurated on 2nd June.
