Casa de l'Ardiaca (Archdeacon's House)

Casa de l'Ardiaca (Archdeacon's House) Review

The interior of this building, home of the municipal archives (upstairs), has superb views of the inside of the 4th-century Roman watchtowers and walls. Look at the Montjuïc sandstone carefully, and you will see blocks taken from other buildings, carved and beveled into decorative shapes, proof of the haste of the Romans as the Visigoths approached from the north at the end of the Pax Romana. The marble letter box by the front entrance was designed in 1895 by Lluís Domènech i Montaner for the Lawyer's Professional Association, and, as the story goes, is meant to symbolize, in the images of the doves, the lofty flight to the heights of justice and, in the images of the turtles, the plodding pace of administrative procedures. The lovely courtyard here, across from the Santa Llúcia chapel, is centered on a fountain, and on the day of Corpus Christi in June the fountain impressively supports l'ou com balla, or "the dancing egg," a Barcelona tradition. Eggs are placed atop numerous jets of water as part of the celebration.