La Ricarda as Architectural and Symbolic Context for the Pioneer Practices of J. M. Mestres Quadreny in the Origins of Sound Art in Catalonia

Abstract

This study reviews and analyzes the artistic activity developed in La Ricarda or Casa Gomis (El Prat del Llobregat, Barcelona) during the 1960s. It is intended to reflect on its relevant role as a physical and symbolic space for the promotion of creative practices that can be considered precursors of the current field of sound art. In particular, various works by the Catalan composer Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny (1929-2021) are addressed, some of them in collaboration with the experimental poet Joan Brossa (1919-1998), in the context of Música Oberta, an initiative of concerts related to experimental music developed within the framework of Club 49, whose purpose was the dissemination and stimulation of new artistic and musical creations. The architectural context of La Ricarda, designed by Antonio Bonet Castellana (1913-1989), served as a stimulus for the conception of the musical actions of Mestres Quadreny and Joan Brossa, which represent an overflow of the musical concept and experiments in the limits of theater, poetry and conceptual art departing from the rite of the classical concert. In turn, the technological equipment of La Ricarda, very advanced in its time, encouraged Mestres to experiment with sound in space, thus anticipating processual music techniques with recorded sound –which he will later use in future works of concrete and electroacoustic music–. Finally, the idea of ​​conceiving the work from the architectural space, outside of the concert rite, can be understood as the origin of the current sound installation.