The Cros, Garí castle or Garí Palace of Argentona adopts the characteristics of a large, fortified house with a quadrangular attached tower and circular turrets on the flanks, with loopholes, typical of both military architectural structures and rural isolated buildings, elements that allowed a better defense in uncertain times. The farm is surrounded by a walled enclosure. An upper gallery runs along the façades below the roof line, which is covered by glazed ceramic tiles, a detail that gives an idea of the importance that applied arts had at this time. The finishes of wrought iron on the roofs of the tower and the turrets also reflect this fact, in such a way that we the main elements of the industrial age – the applied arts and the historicist theme, which is evident in the revival of the medieval world with the construction of a building – are joined together with the characteristics of a late medieval castle. Access to the house is through a porch that has a gallery or loggia above it, which presents a style close to the flamboyant Gothic style. The house is centered by a courtyard with an open staircase to the first floor. In the interior, J. Puig i Cadafalch was in charge of designing all the furniture and ornamental elements: the staircase, the handrails, the eaves, the fireplace, the lights... and even the sculptural ornamentation of the columns where, among heraldic or floral motifs, one can discover caricatures such as those of Sagasta or Romero Robledo, important figures in the politics of the moment. In 1925, the architect Lluís Bonet Garí replaced the house of the tenant farmers, which was on the ground floor, and installed new bedrooms and a room there.
Within the extensive property of Can Garí in Cros d'Argentona, a large garden that completed the work of remodeling the estate that Josep Puig i Cadafalch carried out between 1898 and 1900 was designed. Nicolau M. Rubió i Tudurí was the first to intervene in the design through the combination of natural spaces with the distribution of tree areas, mainly pines, which responded to leaving a free nature next to other modeled ones. The garden designed to pass through by means of paths, stepped terraces made of exposed brick, pergolas (some recall the work he was carrying out in the Montjuïc Park, in Barcelona) and pointing out points of view open to broad perspectives. The presence of vegetation is combined with sculptures that give a more human dimension to the complex. Wooded spaces have been recreated, others with the presence of cacti and a large tin in the middle of which is the glass temple of Baccarat with the figure of Hermes in bronze or the dots of wrought iron lanterns all resume the stately character of the place.
This garden with the presence of sculptures and areas with citrus trees, so characteristic of the Mediterranean and Italian villas, enters fully into the Noucentisme style. The gardening work was continued by Lluís Bonet i Garí, with whom they shared the same ideology linked to the Noucentisme period.
In 1929, Lluís Bonet i Garí designed the construction of the Can Garí farmhouse, intended for agricultural work and housing. He did not want his project to be a contrast to the work done by Josep Puig i Cadafalch in Can Garí. The new building was designed to take on a certain stately character, both for the dimensions and for the careful treatment of the materials used. Therefore, you can find glazed tiles in the gable roof, a very careful work in the masonry that surrounds the openings or in the discharge arches, but at the same time it also took references from the architecture of the farmhouses. The whole set takes the volume of a farmhouse and introduces the arched gallery. You can also see the use of sgraffito in a figure of Saint Christopher that crowns one of the entrance doors intended for the machinery. There is padding in the corners, and the whole wall is plastered. A stand stands out in the corner that provides it with a character of distinction. Symmetry was not used in the composition, since each of the façades has a different treatment, as is the case with Can Garí by Josep Puig i Cadafalch.
The Cros chapel was built in 1929 by the architect Lluís Bonet i Garí.
If we take into account that at the end of the 19th century construction had not reached the degree of industrialisation of our time, we can appreciate the feat that Puig i Cadafalch represents in completing this work, the house of the financier Josep Garí at the Cros d'Argentona, after only nine months from the start of the works in 1899.
Building designed with a square floor plan, and ground floor plus three additional floors. Attached to this massive body, we can see the main tower and some circular turrets in the upper corners. The roof, with a generous perimeter eaves, is of four-sided Arabic tiles, with the presence of glazed ceramics. The attic is surrounded on the four facades by a gallery of arched openings. Facing S-E, the interior is accessed through a richly decorated Neo-Gothic porch: two Solomonic stone columns and a false cross vault with sgraffitos and glazed tiles give way to the main door, which is flanked by sculpted stone figures. Inside, we find the lobby, with marble flooring and sgraffito walls, and the ceiling decorated with a polychrome coving, as in the rest of the house. The central space, illuminated by a skylight, is conceived as a medieval palace courtyard, with a stately staircase leading to a gallery, where the various rooms communicate. Although it has the formal characteristics of the great Catalan manor houses, the building wants to be a bourgeois palace, in the Central European style, following Mediterranean inspirations. The style combines neo-Gothic elements with the decoration of the late 19th century, since the sgraffitos and sculptures of Eusebi Arnau are present on the entire surface of the façades. The use of noble materials both on the exterior and interior of the building stands out. In the later stage, Lluís Bonet i Garí, in addition to the farmhouse, took advantage of elements of the Marianao’s Palace and Gardens (Passeig de Gràcia- Gran Via), with the intervention of the architect Nicolau Ma. Rubió and Tudurí. In this garden you can see the works of Clarà, Vallmitjana, Llimona and Reynes. The lake temple is made of Baccara crystal.
The estate owned the neighbouring estates of Can Patet and Can Sorrall, through which a canal passed that led the water along the neighbouring flour mills, and where the reservoir for the water that fed the ponds in the garden was built.
The primitive farmhouse, Can Sirés, works as the basis for the new building, in works that will last nine months. It is expanded with a rear corridor, it grows in height and an interior courtyard is created, illuminated from above. Among the interior rooms, the use of the attic as a theatre stands out, with its own stage.
