CASA
DE LA
PATUM

La Casa de la Patum is a multi-functional building in the old quarter of Berga, a city in the north of Barcelona, at the foot of the Pyrenees mountain range. The building stands in one corner of the city main square, while the town hall and the church of Sant Pere enclose the other. It is an important new piece of the old city, standing in a critical point where the medieval city and the later urban developments connect; and where it is shaped not only the corner of the Sant Pere square but also the back façade offered to the city below.

With its unitary brownish zinc roof and façade, the building is a new cut out piece of the old city conglomerate. It replaces two old 19th century constructions, and it is intended to be a new emblematic centre of activity in the quarter. Although its main function is to host the city’s museum for La Patum, it dedicates two upper floors to city council departments and local association’s offices.

La Patum de Berga is a traditional Catalan festival that takes place every year during Corpus Christi. It was declared as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005. The Festival consists of a series of “dances” (balls) by townspeople dressed as mystical and symbolical figures, and accompanied either by the rhythm of a drum —the tabal, whose sound gives the festival its name— or band music. The dances stand out by their solemnity and their ample use of fire and pyrotechnics.

The new building is conceived around the reinterpretation of some of those dances, with a central courtyard coiling itself and reproducing the anticlockwise motion that happens in the square during the dances. Around it, coloured glass shines reproducing the typical colours of the festival: red from the omnipresent fire and green from the clematis vitalba (a climbing shrub that is used to protect the plens —demons— in their fire dance). The building’s structure is shaped after the triangular forms that are widely reproduced in many figure’s dresses.

The exhibition spaces are developed in three levels, connecting the upper square with a street, ten metres below, which surrounds the old quarter and that once was extra-mural. The 14th century wall that was enclosing the medieval city partially remains in the plot. That wall is embraced by the platforms from each level, without it being touched, but still being preserved and displayed. A continuous stairway connects the levels and gives continuity to an exhibition, understood as a promenade through the history, not only of the festival, but also of the city’s medieval times.

The stairway is actually interior and exterior, as it creates an alley between the medieval city and the later city developments. That connection is of such a great importance because a lift with pedestrian access to the square for disabled people is built in, a feature that did not exist until now. The building solves many urban and connective shortcomings in that part of the old quarter and provides the whole city with a singular chest, where its most valuable treasure is preserved: its own history as a medieval city and that of the Humanity Heritage of La Patum.