The new issue of the magazine of the Museum of Badalona, Carrer dels Arbres, revista digital d’història i patrimoni de Badalona, corresponding to the year 2024, is now available on our website.
We hope the articles that includes will be of your interest.
During the Christmas holidays, the Museum will be closed on Tuesday 24th (afternoon), Wednesday 25th, Thursday 26th, Tuesday 31st December (afternoon), Wednesday 1st, Saturday 4th (afternoon) and Sunday 5th January.
The Christmas holidays will also affect the opening hours of the Historical Archive of the City of Badalona (AHBDN), which will be closed the week of 23rd to 29th December 2024 and Wednesday 1st January 2025.
The Museum of Badalona presents a virtual tour on the Roman Baths-Decumanus space, the Roman archaeological site that is preserved in the basement of the building, a resource that will allow interested people to walk, from their computer or mobile phone, through the Roman baths-Decumanus space and the permanent exhibition “Baetulo Roman City”.
This is a different way of touring the nearly 3,500 m2 of museum site, a unique opportunity both to get to know different points of the space and to appreciate certain details, also of some pieces, that go unnoticed in a conventional visit.
The visit, available in Catalan, Spanish and English, incorporates digital labels with additional information about different points and areas of the route and a large number of the pieces on display. The project therefore allows the cultural heritage of Badalona from the Roman period to be made available to everyone, without geographical or linguistic limitations.
We now present this virtual tour to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the discovery of the sculpture of the goddess Venus -which can be seen in the Museum- by the Badalona archaeologist Joaquim Font i Cussó. We hope you enjoy this new resource as we continue working to make our city’s rich heritage known.
Would you like to join us in this tour?
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE VIRTUAL TOUR FROM YOUR BROWSER
The Choral society and Mutual Aid Alba of Badalona, the first created in Badalona, was inaugurated in 1850. It was headquartered at the current number 36 of Francesc Layret’s street. Like most choral societies, and as its name suggests, it was a mutual aid organization, a mutual entity to which members contributed a monthly amount that served to cover medical expenses or lack of work when the occasion required it.
On the first floor of the building there was a large room where singing and lyrical sessions were scheduled, as well as theatrical activities.
Although it no longer had any activities, the mutual society lasted well into the 21st century.
The Oliva Cultural Society (Societat Coral l’Oliva) of Canyet was founded in 1901 as an entity intended to provide new leisure options for the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Its founders were members of the Unió Society – a cultural entity founded around 1888, based in a place called El Sot – which they decided to leave due to differences with other members.
In 1905, Oliva already had its own choral section, La Cañetense, founded following the precepts of Maestro Clavé, whose testimony would be collected, from 1921, by the Oliva Art and Culture Choir Section. The performances of this choir, popularly known as the Canyet Choir, immediately became an indispensable component of all the neighborhood’s festivals.
The Societat Coral l’Oliva also became a prominent center of theatrical activity. In 1925, the Drama Section of the organization was created, which would bring together a good number of fans from the neighborhood and which would gradually consolidate over the years, to the point of having the collaboration of the painter and set designer Antoni Ros i Güell and such renowned actors from Badalona as Enric Borràs or Joaquim Grífol.
The Museum preserves the organization’s two banners in its collections.
The new VINSEUM, the Museum of the Wine Cultures of Catalonia, has recently been inaugurated in Vilafranca del Penedès, a proposal born with the vocation to become a point of reference on the history and evolution of the vineyard and the came to our country.
Badalona’s contribution could not be missing in this proposal, given the importance that wine had in our population, already in Roman times. Thus, as a result of the collaboration between the two institutions, up to 20 Roman and modern pieces from our collections have been loaned, which have been incorporated into the new center’s permanent exhibition museum
Among the items ceded from the Roman period, an amphora rim of the Pascual 1 shape stands out, with the stamp M.PORCI -short for Marcus Porcius-, belonging to the best-known wine producer of ancient Baetulo, two glasses and two amphorisks that seem to be tied to the necks of the amphorae in order to be able to do the corresponding tasting of the wine they contained.
As for the modern and contemporary era, several molds for making glass cups from the old Cristall de Badalona factory that was active from 1866 to 2014 have been left, as well as objects related to the manufacture of this material (blow reeds, a pitchfork, modeling tongs, glass paste…).
We invite you to delve deeper into this journey into the history of wine that comes to us from Vilafranca del Penedès and we challenge you to find our pieces!
Last October, our colleague Clara Forn defended her thesis entitled “Baetulo de l’origen a la fi (II ANE – VI DNE). Topographical, spatial and historical analysis based on a GIS project”, which obtained the qualification cum laude. The doctoral thesis was directed by Dr. Josep Guitart i Duran, former director of the Museum of Badalona and author of the thesis “Baetulo. Topography archeology urbanism and history” published by the Museum of Badalona in 1976.
The dissertation presented is the second monographic thesis written on the city of Baetulo, and aims to be a benchmark for archaeological studies of the city of Baetulo and urban archaeological sites, as well as being the basis for future studies works related to the city and its territory.
The work is structured in two large blocks. The first presents the study framework and reviews both previous archaeological studies and urban archeology work over almost a hundred years. The second, which is divided into three sections, presents for the first time an exhaustive analysis of the Roman city and its suburbs based on a project based on geographic information systems. Therefore, all archaeological structures are analyzed from a topographical, spatial and historical perspective.
It is necessary to highlight the effort to digitize and update the result of the archaeological interventions made from 1927 to the present day, applying an own and leading methodology that will facilitate a large amount of data both in future scientific investigations, as in the management of the archaeological site and its dissemination.
At the end of 1920, Antoni Botey, Jaume Costa, Salvador Valls, Joan Aymerich and Ramon Salsas promoted the creation of a choir in Badalona. The project, which soon gained the support of a good group of partners, became a reality on April 27th, 1921, the date on which the Orfeó was established, and on June 29th of the same year it was presented in society at a party at the Zorrilla Theater dedicated to partners and protectors.
In February 1923, the organization’s banner was blessed in an event attended by the president of the Commonwealth of Catalonia, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, and the director and founder of the Orfeó Català, Lluís Millet.
The design of the banner is the work of the architect Joan Amigó i Barriga, who had previously designed that of the Center Catalanista Gent Nova.
The Museum also preserves a set of ties (inv. MB 7869-MB 7877 and MB 11760-MB 11791) of various dates that bear witness to the Orfeó’s participation in various cantadas and festivals around the world.
Between the months of July and August 2024, an archaeological intervention has been carried out on Santa Bàrbara street, in the neighborhood of Coll i Pujol. As a result of this intervention, several elements have been discovered that span a chronological range from the Roman era to the contemporary era, and which have been preserved at a great depth.
The archaeological works, which have been carried out by the company ÀTICS SL under the direction of the archaeologist Iñaki Moreno, have been promoted by the ownership of the plot. Monitoring has been done from the Museum of Badalona under the supervision of the Archeology and Paleontology Service of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
We are in a space that in recent years has been the subject of the discovery of several archaeological remains belonging to the western suburb of the Roman city of Baetulo, and medieval and modern agricultural spaces. In this sense, two funerary buildings have been partially documented of which only the foundations are preserved. Of note is a tower-shaped mausoleum that would be at the foot of the Via Augusta, from the 1st century AD. The remains of a room that was part of a rural establishment from the 4th century AD have also been very partially preserved. In another part of the site, the remains of two walls that functioned as agricultural parcels and a well from the late medieval period have been excavated.
The archaeological work, which has already been completed, will increase knowledge of the peri-urban areas of the city. The archaeological control and monitoring will continue until the execution of the planned building.
The Coro Marítimo Badalonés society was a choral and mutual aid organization founded in 1900, which operated until 1994. The premises were located on Passeig de la Rambla, no. 4, next to the building known as Ca l’Escanyaralets, where there is currently an architect’s office.
Although the main activity was that of a choral organization, the venue had a small stage that made it easy to create a scenic tableau.
It is not known when the banners were made, although both have the date 1900 embroidered on the back, which probably refers to the year of foundation. Despite not knowing the date, due to the fabrics and the design of the banners, it seems that the piece with no. of inventory 5981 is older than the other.
Also preserved are some penón ties (inv. MB 16172 to MB 16180) and some commemorative medals of the organization’s participation in various cantadas (inv. MB 4856-MB 4862, MB 5791-MB 5972).
