Excavations in the Tarrés factory bring more data on Barcelona during the beginning of industrialization
The Barcelona from the 19th century in Pla Cerdà underwent a transformation of the urban landscape with the emerging uses of ceramics in construction and decoration in the facades of buildings. At the moment, Barcelona keeps remains from one of the potteries these ceramics were made: Tarrés factory, the most important workroom of the kind in the city. The remains of the Tarrés workroom are located in the archaeological site in the Faculty of Geography and History of the UB, in Raval, and each summer, there are excavations by the lecturers and students of this center, as industrial heritage. The last campaign showed structures that were hidden so far and many pieces that were made in the factory, such as vases, flowerpots, and tiles that decorated house facades in Barcelona.
The Barcelona from the 19th century in Pla Cerdà underwent a transformation of the urban landscape with the emerging uses of ceramics in construction and decoration in the facades of buildings. At the moment, Barcelona keeps remains from one of the potteries these ceramics were made: Tarrés factory, the most important workroom of the kind in the city. The remains of the Tarrés workroom are located in the archaeological site in the Faculty of Geography and History of the UB, in Raval, and each summer, there are excavations by the lecturers and students of this center, as industrial heritage. The last campaign showed structures that were hidden so far and many pieces that were made in the factory, such as vases, flowerpots, and tiles that decorated house facades in Barcelona.
From a heritage perspective, the site of the Tarrés factory is characterized by keeping almost all the productive spaces of the factory, which allows us to rebuild the process of fabrication of its products. In this 2019 campaign, researchers excavated in the area of the mill, which was mainly used to grind basic elements for stain and glaze, so a series of structures have been shown -such as tanks and sinks. Among the material they found are a series of flowerpots with child scenes, tiles with some decoration, vases and pots with plant elements, and even a funerary placard. They also found material from L. Colleʼs French workshop, which shows the relationship between the Tarrés family and this French workroom. Also, this work proves there is still a lot to find.
The remains found so far in the site bring information on the life in Barcelona in the beginning of industrialization: how a house-factory worked -such as Tarrésʼ- or the importance of ceramics as a building and decor element. A city regulation in 1846 allowed elevating facades in Barcelona up to 100 spans if they were properly decorated, which may explain the increase of production in potteries, such as Tarrésʼ, making these decoration elements. At the moment, there are more than sixty works by Tarrés in several buildings around Barcelona.
From an academic perspective, having such a site in the Faculty of Geography and History allows the possibility, almost exceptional, for the students of Archaeology to carry out their practical lessons in the same center where they study, thanks to an agreement between the University and the Barcelona City Council, the owner of this site. Since 2014, students take part in a campaign every summer -coordinated by Professor Josep Maria Gurt and led by the archaeologist Jacinto Sánchez Gil de Montes. Also, the site holds the dissemination project ArqueUB, which allows high school students to stay in the archaeological site, while several disseminating actions take place for the general audience.