Located in a large block of apartments built in the early twentieth century to the Gran Via de Barcelona, next to the mountain of Montjuïc, is a very visible building for its large size. Included in the Catalog of Heritage of the city with the popular name of “Cal Drapaire”. It seems that the developer Pau Fornt, who lived in an attic of the same building, began his professional life as a ragman. [+info]

It was a very large development for the time. Ten floors and 240 apartments for rent organized in six scale boxes. Although it was conceived as a low-income housing development, compared to similar properties built at the same time in the Eixample, the spaces are generous and the construction is of high quality. The architect, Modesto Feudo, is the author of many interesting modernist and “noucentistes” buildings, almost all located in the Sants district.

Each scale box has four floors per landing. Two floors face the street (quite noisy and little sun) and two face the interior of the island (protected from the noise of Grande Via and sunny). The house to be renovated corresponds to this second orientation, on a high floor and with lots of light. The intervention focused on making the most of the glazed gallery. The best space in the house, facing southeast and very spacious. The original wooden exterior carpentry had already been replaced in a previous renovation by aluminium with thermal glass. It was considered economically reasonable to keep it unchanged.

The kitchen will be left open, and exchanges position with the main bathroom. The division between the living room and the master bedroom consists of a birch wood furniture, with sliding doors and an upper glass panel, which allows to communicate the two spaces in a fluid way. Several other pieces of furniture are made for storage, wardrobe and kitchen, combining birch plywood and white color. Simple furniture, but all made to measure for each space. The uniformity of materials unifies and gives a sense of order to the whole. The existing flooring of glued parquet, was very bad and with woodworm. When it was torn up, a floor of simple hydraulic tiles was discovered underneath, but the glue of the parquet had left it unrecoverable. Finally, it was decided to install a porcelain stoneware floor in the wet areas and floating parquet in the rest.