The building applies the procedures of industrial architecture to a project with a high degree of fragmentation. The outbuildings of the workshops are located on a semi-underground floor that reaches the bottom of the site. The entrance is highlighted by an octagonal dome that provides overhead light and connects it visually to the office loft. The second section is for the file, set in a U-shape around a central skylight. The complex is made up of a structure of cast iron pillars and beams arranged in well-differentiated sectors, and a brick factory façade with six large, glazed openings. The design of the façade adopts the filigree motifs typical of Islamic architecture, one of the main references of the time. The arrangement of the openings generates numerous visuals in a vertical direction and creates light and space effects that anticipate the interests of modern architecture.
The Montaner i Simon publishing house was founded in 1861 by Ramon Montaner and Francesc Font. In 1879 they commissioned a new building for the publishing house from Domènech i Montaner, Ramon Montaner's nephew, in the heart of the expanding Eixample.
Although it was an industrial building, it was conceived as a mansion between partitions, with a main façade with a central symmetrical axis and the offices in the first bay, while the printing presses and storage shelves were located at the back.
The office area, with a staircase area illuminated by an octagonal firefly, was highly compartmentalised and had a more conventional feel. The industrial area, on the other hand, had a diaphanous floor plan with a structure of cast-iron pillars and exposed metal girders and a central courtyard in the form of an impluvium.
This structure initiated the spatial rationality that would characterise many of his works.
The first proposal for the project, for which planning permission was requested, presented a façade with a fairly academic composition and a pediment at the top, finished with Montjuïc stone. However, the façade was eventually built in exposed brick, and the whole composition took on a much more modern language, combining medieval references with representations of the inventors of printing techniques and great writers.
With the use of exposed brick on the façade, the materials took centre stage not only for their constructive function, but also as decoration. This work also marked the beginning of the pairing of decorative arts and architecture that Domènech was to develop in depth, with the recovery of crafts such as wrought iron, stained glass, ceramics, mosaic, etc.
The family business was in operation until 1952, when it was taken over by another publisher. The building underwent various modifications to its interior to adapt it to the needs of the publishing house. It finally closed in 1981. Since 1990 it has been the headquarters of the Fundació Tàpies.
