Located inside one of the Eixample’s residential blocks, the headquarters of Gustavo Gili Publishers was built between 1954 and 1960. It is a sober building, with pure lines and polygonal bodies, and one of the best examples of 1950s rationalist architecture in Barcelona.
The daring of the client, Gustavo Gili, and the know-how of the architects, Joaquim Gili and Francesc Bassó, combined to produce a pioneering building at a difficult time for progressive ideas in Spain: the head office of the publishing house Editorial Gustavo Gili, founded in Barcelona in 1902. It was a call for modern architecture to be adopted as a movement befitting the contemporary era.
The building reflects the main ideas of rationalist architecture: the use of new materials, elimination of superfluous decoration, submission of form to function, consistency with the surroundings and making use of natural light. The architects had been trained in the theories of GATCPAC, a group of progressive Catalan architects, and they were enthusiastic supporters of the new architecture as opposed to out-of-date classicism.
One year after its inauguration, in 1961, Gili i Bassó's work was awarded the FAD Award for Architecture. In the building, the geometric and rectilinear volumes on the outside are contrasted with the curved shapes of the interior. It is divided into three sections arranged around a central roundabout that served to facilitate the entry and exit of vehicles to the publishing house's warehouses. The three sections are linked by landscaped outdoor patios, created to maintain the initial idea of the Cerdà Plan to fill the interior of the island with green.
The Barcelona City Council bought the old headquarters of Editorial Gustavo Gili in 2021 with plans to house the offices of the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) and the Barcelona Municipal Institute of Education (IMEB), creating a single space for “technical, cultural and educational services, allowing for the joint design and implementation of projects and programs.”
