Monumental fireplace of the Generalitat Palace

"This monumental fireplace dominates Palau Maricel gold hall since 1936. It replaced a gothic one that came from Jaca which was part of Charles Deering collection that was moved to Pedralbes palace in Barcelona.

It was designed by the architect Joan Rubió I Bellver (1871 – 1952) and chiselled by Josep M. Camps I Arnau (1879 – 1968), commissioned by the President of the Provincial Government of Barcelona, Josep M. Milà I Camps, to decorate his office. Formally it corresponded to the remodelling project, enlargement and decoration of the old Palace of La Generalitat after the Mancomunitat dissolution, and it fitted to the attempt to adapt it to medieval civil architecture building.

The result was a fireplace that combines elements from the Noucentisme with Neogothic ones, quite anachronistic at that time. The fireplace, with great technical virtuosity, displays an iconographic program related to the Catalonia development, organized in three levels. The allegory of trade and industry holds the structure. In the frieze, scenes related to work between gothic arches, and on the top, flanked by the allegorical figures of Motherhood and Education the Generalitat of Catalonia coat of arms."