Palau Nacional Organ - Barcelona, Spain
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N 41° 22.131 E 002° 09.198
31T E 429189 N 4580050
The Palau Nacional is located on Montjuïc hill at the end of Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina in Barcelona.
Waymark Code: WMQTG3
Location: Cataluña, Spain
Date Posted: 03/27/2016
Views: 8
The Palau Nacional (Catalan for ‘National Palace’) was the main site of the 1929 International Exhibition on the hill of Montjuïc in Barcelona. It was designed by Eugenio Cendoya and Enric Catà under the supervision of Pere Domènech i Roura. Since 1934 it has been home to the National Art Museum of Catalonia.
The Great Hall is covered by an oval shaped coffered vault, with large columns dominating the decoration. The column’s shafts are adorned with a Renaissance grotesque decoration. The decoration is simple, consisting of ornamental borders and basic vegetation motifs, which line both the arches and the coves of the vault. Another design element of the Salon is he fifty-six small heraldic shields which occupy the space between the arches and represent the fifty Spanish provinces which existed in 1929. The six remaining shields depict musical instruments and are located in the part of the Salon where the organ is found.
The organ was built by German Walker and Cie. The mechanisms was entirely electric and consisted of 154 music registers divided into five keyboards and a pedal keyboard of thirty-two notes, with more than two thousand organ pipes. It was inaugurated by Professor Alfred Sittard on the 6th of July 1929. The organ was restored and enlarged in 1955, wherein two thousand five hundred new pipes were added to the previous amount. With the expansion of the organ it now contains six keyboards and measures a total of eleven meters in height and 34 meters in width.
Opening Hours:
Winter opening times: October to April, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm; Sundays and public holidays, 10am to 3pm
Summer opening times: May to September, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 8pm; Sundays and public holidays, 10am to 3pm
Mondays closed, except public holidays. Monday public holidays 2016: March 28th, May 16th, August 15th and December 26th
Annual closing: January 1st, May 1st and December 25th
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