Colònia Güell, Art Nouveau industrial colony in Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Spain.
Colònia Güell is a textile factory settlement from 1890 featuring residential buildings, schools, and a chapel decorated with detailed brickwork, ironwork, and ceramic details. The site includes roughly 30 original structures that show the layout and design of a workers' settlement from that era.
A cotton industrialist founded this settlement in 1890, moving his factory from Barcelona to provide better living conditions for workers. In the 1920s, he commissioned a Catalan architect to design an underground chapel that served as an experimental building project.
The colony reflects early industrial life as it was lived, with worker houses clustered around the factory and the community structures that shaped daily interactions among residents. Visitors can observe how factory workers and their families lived and worked together in this settlement.
Visitors can orient themselves at an information center on-site and join guided tours available in multiple languages. The grounds are freely walkable, and parking plus a café are available for a break.
The underground chapel was designed by a renowned Catalan architect and served as an architectural testing ground for innovative techniques later used in another world-famous building. This experimental structure is a hidden layer in modern architectural history.
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