Located in the district of Les Corts, the monastic complex of Santa Maria de Montserrat de Pedralbes occupies the entire block bounded by the Carretera de Esplugues and the streets Moneders, Miret i Sans, Ardena and Abadesa Olzet. The main access to the complex is from Carretera de Esplugues.
The complex was designed by the architect and landscape architect Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí, who designed a large garden area that complements a group of buildings in the Florentine Neo-Renaissance style, with a strong influence of the architecture of Filippo Brunelleschi. The complex consists of a church in the shape of a Latin cross flanked by two cloisters and a bell tower attached to the presbytery. Attached to the church on the north side are the annex buildings of the monastery, which are now a college.
The complex is enclosed by a common masonry wall and is accessed through a wrought-iron gate flanked by two pylons crowned with sculptures of two dogs. The garden, planted with pines, cypresses and palm trees, has a large stone staircase with a central parterre leading to the top of the hill, which is crowned by the monumental façade of the monastery.
The exterior walls are entirely clad in white, grey and pink marble, in the Florentine tradition. The main façade facing the garden is divided into three sections: the central section, which contains the portico of the church, and the two side sections, which contain the two adjoining cloisters. These lateral sections have a façade inspired by the Ospedale degli Innocenti, built in Florence by Brunelleschi. Like that façade, the present one is articulated by diaphanous galleries of Tuscan columns supporting semicircular arches decorated with medallions in the spandrels. These façades are crowned by a cornice that includes the gable roof that covers the galleries of the cloisters.
The central body of the façade, corresponding to the atrium, was designed following the models proposed by Leon Battista Alberti for the church of Sant Andreu in Mantua, i.e. as a triumphal arch crowned by a triangular pediment. Thus, two pairs of Corinthian half-columns and, above them, two pairs of pilasters of the same order, frame a large moulded semicircular arch supported by two pairs of Corinthian pilasters with fluted shafts. The frieze of the entablature contains the inscription ‘ALMAE MONTIS SERRATI DEIPARAE SACRVM’ and the whole is crowned by a triangular pediment with a medallion in relief of the Virgin and Child.
The large central arch gives access, as mentioned above, to the atrium of the church, a rich space covered by a barrel vault with lunettes supported by Corinthian stone pilasters and walls decorated with coloured marble quarters. The highlight of this space is the mural decoration that covers the vault, painted by Josep Obiols. The vault features the Chrismon surrounded by garlands of flowers, while the central lunette shows a monumental Assumption of the Virgin surrounded by angels and cherubs in an exotic garden. The side lunettes show, behind a parapet, the images of Santa Eulàlia and Sant Jordi, patron saints of Barcelona and Catalonia. Access to the church is through a door with a grey marble lintel topped by a triangular frieze and a frieze with the inscription ‘The noble and illustrious Catalan hero Josep Nicolav de Olzina y de Ferret ordered the building of this church and read it for the cult of the Virgin of Montserrat, patron saint of Catalonia, and handed it over to the Archbishopric of Barcelona on 22-VII-1964’.
The church has a Latin cross plan with a single nave covered with a barrel vault, interrupted by a dome over the transept and ending in a polygonal apse. The walls and vaults are covered with white mortar, while the load-bearing elements (pillars, arches and entablatures) are finished in grey stone. The pilasters supporting the transverse arches have a Corinthian capital and a classical fluted shaft. In the chancel, the high altar is protected by a large gilded baldachin supported by four Corinthian columns in black marble. The dome of the transept, in the shape of a half-orange, rests on shells adorned with medallions and is directly inspired by the Pazzi Chapel that Brunelleschi built in the basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. However, its external appearance is inspired by the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, an early medieval building covered by a closed dome with an eight-sloped roof and crowned by a narrow white marble lantern.
The left arm of the transept leads to a Greek-cross-shaped mortuary space crowned by a dome that appears on the outside in the form of a four-sloped roof topped by a white marble lantern. Attached to the apse is the convent's bell tower, a square building with three sections of decreasing size crowned by a pyramid that is very loosely inspired by the Campanile of the cathedral of Venice.
The complex, designed by the architect and landscape architect Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí, was built in 1920 with the aim of establishing a Benedictine monastery in Barcelona, a branch of Montserrat. The construction was financed by the Sabadell industrialist Josep Nicolau de Olzina i de Ferrer and his wife Mercè de Pallejà i de Bassa, Marquises of Montsoliu. Between 1921 and 1924, the couple died without any descendants, but their nephews, Guillem de Pallejà Ferrer-Vidal and Clotilde Ricart Roger wanted to continue with the project. The sponsors of the church wanted a Renaissance-style building, while the monks of Montserrat, for whom the church was intended, wanted a Romanesque church. Faced with this dilemma, Rubió decided to depart from the Tuscan Greco-Roman and continue with Brunelleschi, thus giving relative satisfaction to both contenders. One of his disciples, Joan Mirambell, gave shape to the garden complex.
Work on the monastery came to a standstill at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, when Rubió i Tudurí had to go into exile. Work was resumed in 1950, when Raimon Duran i Reynals took over the project and Josep Obiols was hired to paint the paintings that decorate the portico. In 1964 it passed into the hands of the Archbishopric of Barcelona, which converted it into the parish church of Santa Maria Reina.
