Gavà Archeological Museum, Barcelona, Spain

The Gavà Museum and Mines of Gavà Archaeological Park is a municipal museum institution founded in 1978 in Gavà (Baix Llobregat) as a result of the discovery of a Neolithic mining complex in Can Tintorer and the completion of other archeological works in the area..

It is a work of the municipality of Gavà, included in the Inventory of the Architectural Heritage of Catalonia. The Gavà Museum, based in Torre Lluc, was founded in 1978 with the aim of recovering, studying and disseminating the historical, archeological and natural heritage of the municipality. In 2007 the Mines de Gavà Archaeological Park was created as an extension of the museum due to the need to protect and disseminate the archaeological site of the Prehistoric Mines of Gavà. In 2013, the Rambla de Gavà Anti-aircraft Refuge was restored and adapted, in order to preserve and recover its historical memory, as well as to pay tribute to the victims of the Civil War.

It is part of the Network of Local Museums of the Diputación de Barcelona and of Arqueoxarxa.

Description
It is an isolated building of rectangular plant with ground floor, floor, attic and roof in the Catalan. Its composition is symmetrical, from the gaps in the facade. The lateral façades have a gallery running at the height of the ground floor, with semicircular arches, a terrace and a whole set of hydries (on the outer fence of the house and above the lateral galleries). The main access to the building is by going up semicircular steps. The blinds are booklet. The main facade is decorated with engravings of floral motifs and watermark, and dating to 1882.

History
In 1799 the structure of the Lluch farmhouse was erected, which was located on the grounds of the Sauleda and Comas farms. The ownership of the house belonged to Melcior Planas and Crehuet. In 1822, Joan B. de Paris made a reform and in 1925 new modifications, interior and exterior, altered the initial set. On this date the perimeter galleries were added and the sgraffiti on the facade was performed.

Gavà Museum
The Gavà Museum, located in the Lluch Tower, has a building that has a multipurpose room in the basement, temporary exhibition halls and a teaching workshop on the ground floor and the permanent exhibition “Gavà, the voices of the landscape” in the noble plant. The visit is complemented by a botanical garden of native plants grouped in the different environments of the Garraf massif, the Llobregat delta and the orchard crops.

The Museum organizes visits, conferences and educational activities to publicize the natural and cultural heritage of Gavà and publishes publications of a general and scientific nature.

The Lluch Tower
The building where the Museum is located was built in 1799. But the property that will give rise to it is already documented in 1497 with two houses, Comes and Sauleda, which over time pass to the same owner. It will be Joan Ferrer who demolished the two houses and built the current building in 1799. This is a stately farmhouse with a rectangular floor plan, where the typical structure of the farmhouse is mixed with neoclassical-inspired architecture with the survival of Baroque elements. It consists of ground floor, floor, attic and basements with vaults and brick pillars.

In 1822 Joan Ferrer sold the property to Joan Baptista Paris, who would make the distinguishing sundials on the facade. His heir sells the estate to Melcior Planes i Crehuet who will make the gardens following Italian patterns. When dying without descendants he leaves the house and the lands to his farmers, who will leave them to their daughter, Gertrudis Baus, married to Salvador Lluch. At this point the building will be known as Can Lluch. In 1872 Salvador Lluch will present the first urban plan of Gavà to urbanize land of the farmhouse, creating the current streets of Sant Isidre, of the Center, Salvador Lluch, Sant Josep, Marc Grau and the square Dolors Clua where there was the era to beat the grain Descendants in 1925 would add the perimeter galleries of the house, the sgraffiti on the facade, and the garden pond.

At the beginning of the Civil War in 1936 the house was collectivized by the Local Committee of Militia Antifascistas and will be located there. After the war it was returned to its owners. In 1975, the City Council acquired the gardens which it converted into a public park and shortly afterwards the house, which, thanks to the mobilization of citizens, in 1978 became the headquarters of the Gavà Museum.

Museum
During the sixties and seventies various organizations and individuals organize various archeological excavations in order to recover the past of the municipality. The need to preserve, study and publicize the found remains and the citizen movement with the motto “Torre Lluch, cultural center” will cause the Museum to be opened in 1978. It is initially located on the first floor of the Lluch Tower, as the building housed other municipal services. The exhibition showed archeological materials from the excavations of the Cave of Can Sadurní (Begues), the Calamot and the first investigations of the prehistoric mines. The need for a museographic project and the adaptation of the building mean that in 1985 the

In 1991 the museum’s new facilities were inaugurated, now occupying the entire building, with the permanent exhibition “The formation and transformation of the landscape” on the first floor. Later there will be different reforms, which include the inauguration of the Botanical Garden and the incorporation of the Venus de Gavà into the permanent exhibition.

In 2002 the new permanent exhibition, Gavà, the voices of the landscape, was inaugurated, the exhibition was modernized with new multimedia resources and new archeological materials were displayed.

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“Gavà, the voices of the landscape” proposes a route to see how the landscape of the territory has evolved. It focuses on the relationship between human beings and landscape throughout history and is structured around four main axes: food, housing, tools and exchanges. Among the pieces on display is the Venus de Gavà, a female anthropomorphic representation on ceramics dating from 4000 to 3750 BC. This exhibition provides worksheets to help make room visits in Catalan, Spanish, English, French and Braille transcription.

Mines de Gavà Archaeological Park
The Mines de Gavà Archeological Park (c / Jaume I, 7), opened in 2007, allows you to visit the archeological site of the Prehistoric Mines of Gavà (declared BCIN), the oldest gallery mines in Europe. These are 6,000-year-old Neolithic mines dedicated to the extraction of varicite, a green mineral used for ornamentation.

The building, designed by Dani Freixes and Varis Arquitectes, occupies more than 4,000 square meters. It is a unique building built of rusty iron, evoking a shed from an archeological excavation. It rises in the same place where the site was discovered, respecting and protecting it. The architectural and museographic project has been awarded with several prizes: FAD Awards: Opinion Award; EMYA (European Museum of the Year Award) Awards: Special Mention; 2nd Triennial of Architecture and Urbanism of the Baix Llobregat, Garraf and Alt Penedès: Prize for Works of New Plant of Equipment and Services; National Architecture and Public Space Award granted by the Government of Catalonia; FAD Awards: Opinion Award; II AMC Museology Awards: Prize in the Category Projects, Exhibitions and Institutions; Tourist Diploma of Catalonia granted by the Government of Catalonia.

In his installations, the Archaeological Park combines with mining structures museological representation (in Catalan, Spanish and English) that reveals the site of an educational and life during the Neolithic. The route is adapted to facilitate access for people with reduced mobility.

The Park is divided into two large spaces, the first being the collection center and the teaching area, and the second the museum area.

Collection Center and Teaching Area
It is organized around the Neolithic Garden, where visitors will find all the plant species that inhabited the area during this period.

In the lobby is the Shop Reception and a café space.

It also has two classrooms designed, above all, for school visits and a multipurpose room for talks, conferences and other activities. In addition to an interactive room, Objective: Neolithic, which has a multisensory module, “La Mirada Táctil”, a tactile interpretation space adapted for visitors who have some types of visual difficulties, blindness or reduced mobility.

Museum Area
The passage between the two areas is made through the Presentation Audiovisual, which will provide the basic information to begin the visit, how it was discovered, how it has been investigated and what information the site has revealed.

In the center of the museum area is an Original Mine. Around it are organized a series of laboratories that use audiovisual elements and archeological pieces to reveal both different aspects of the Neolithic and the archeological work that allows this data to be reconstructed. Following the perimeter we can approach the archeological excavation and the reproduced hut.

This area has a number of complementary zones:

Laboratory of the Environment. To get to know the landscape and its protagonists.
Technology Laboratories. To know where they lived and how they made the utensils, and to know what tools they used.
Laboratory of the Human Being. To understand what they were and what they thought.
Reproduced Mine. To find out what mining was, how to extract minesite, and to see what a mine was 6,000 years ago.

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