This building was the first urban apartment block carried out from start
to finish by Coderch and Valls. The urban context of the building in
the 1950s was not valuable property, namely Barceloneta's narrow streets
and Barcelona's industrial port. For this reason, Coderch and Valls
designed an introverted housing block where the exterior views are
always conditioned by fixed venetian-type blinds. The construction has
affinities with the Italian avant-garde of the time, especially with
Ignazio Gardella's work. The building has a classic composition in three
blocks: a two-storey zocalo for commercial use, combining large glazed
areas and small-scale masonry; a six-storey body of apartments, composed
by vertical strips of glazed ceramic tiles and the aforementioned white
venetian blinds, and the coronation with a big eave of wooden boards.
