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Casa de la Ardiaca - Archdeacons house - city archives

Beautiful interior courtyard, exhibition space & roof terrace. Building also houses the Barcelona historical archives and is built into the Roman city walls

Updated: Feb 10, 2024 by: Barcelona Travel Hacks Views: 1.6k

About Casa de la Ardiaca Archdeacons house

The archdeacons house, Casa de Ardiaca, can be found next to the Barcelona Cathedral in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. It is found within the Jewish quarter, El Call.

Casa de Ardiaca was built around the 12th century utilizing the remains of the Roman city wall. At the end of the 15th century it was rebuilt by the archdeacon Louis Desparland in a Gothic style with Renaissance elements.

In the 19th century, Casa de Ardiaca passed into the hands of bourgeois owners, who modeled the courtyard in the form of a cloister commissioning architect Josep Garriga. In 1895 it became the seat of the Bar Association of Barcelona, and gained its famous modernist mailbox by Lluís Domènech i Montaner.

It was acquired by the City of Barcelona, in 1919 to serve as the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona with remodeling by architect Joseph Goday. After the bombings of the Civil War (1936-1939) the townhouses on the outside of the wall were demolished and the current day broad Plaça Nova square was created.

On the outside from The Cathedral square you can see the remains of one arch of the Roman aqueduct that brought water into the city. This is not original but actually a modern reproduction.