The building is the result of a series of programs, all proposed by the contractor Evelí Planells. The first proposal consisted of a single-family home, and Jujol recreated the shapes of the Pedrera to turn the building into the plinth of a large statue of the Virgin. The second order is also for a single-family home, in this case for a doctor, but eventually the contractor decides to sell part of the plot and build a residential building for the rest. The duplex system is used to counteract the small area of the site and increase the number of homes by a third. Jujol’s project incorporated an attic for one of Planells’ brothers, with a band of grandstands on the façade that supported a dome with the Marian anagram. The actual building, up to the second floor, links more to the rhetoric of emerging rationalism than to the inherited forms of Catalan modernism.
Located on a small plot on the corner of Diagonal Avenue and Sicília Street, the building was commissioned by Evelí Planells, a contractor, in 1922. This is the third project carried out by Jujol for the client.
In the first phase, a detached house with a garden was proposed for a doctor, but in the end the contractor chose to sell half of the plot, which pushed Jujol to make a second proposal.
This was also a detached house, which was understood as a monument to the Immaculate Conception, also inspired by the idea that Gaudí had proposed in the Milà House. The project, however, did not convince the contractor, who decided to commission a third project to Jujol, a three-story house in order to get more out of the plot.
The house consisted of a mezzanine and a main floor, and the duplex typology was chosen to take advantage of the small size of the plot. Jujol’s project also incorporated a mezzanine for Planells’ brother, who was a painter, with a band of grandstands on the façade supporting the dome with the Marian anagram.
Jujol only built the first two floors of the project, which was later completed. Despite the changes in use it has undergone and the harshness of the neighbouring buildings, the building has always been maintained with this feeling of fragility and serenity, swirling through the traffic, on the corner.
