Manuel Serra i Moret Library

Mèlies Square, 21

In 1915, the "Mancomunitat de Catalunya" ( Union of the four Catalan Provincial Councils) (1) established the "Servei de Biblioteques Populars" (Public Libraries Service), a project devised by Eugeni d'Ors, and commissioned to architect Lluís Planas i Calvet. The council of Pineda de Mar, presided by Manuel Serra i Moret, obtained for its municipal area the adjudication of one of those libraries. To this effect, in 1917 an isolated plot of land was bought, and a few years later, it was the trigger that prompted the urban development of the town. That very same year, the works began.

(1) The Mancomunitat de Catalunya, (1914-1925), was also the first territorial reunification of Catalonia . It was made up of an Assembly of ninety-six deputies of Catalonia in the Spanish Parliament, a Council of eight ministers and the President, Prat de la Riba. With no budget and only with the funds collected by the four provincial Councils, the Mancomunitat brought about innovations in culture and civic work, the results of which can still be seen today. The Mancomunitat was abolished in 1925 by the dictatorship (1923-1930) of General Primo de Rivera.

In those years, the industrial bourgeoisie -that for the first time enjoyed an embryonic political power- embraced within their reformism ideals for the country, the spirit proclaimed by the "noucentisme" (Cultural movement of political scope initiated in Catalonia at the beginning of the 20th century). The “noucentista” movement, inspired by Eugeni d´Ors, was born at the beginning of the century as a reaction to the modernist "excesses" and proclaimed a return to the values of classical architecture: order, moderation, rationality, as opposed to the leeway and spontaneity of the modernists, considered alien to the Mediterranean tradition.

The Pineda Library, opened in 1922, correlates completely with the aesthetic criteria derived of the new style and uses a conventional range of classical tradition with an eclectic attitude. Initially, it was a small one level building encompassing a vestibule, reading room, office and restroom. In the years 1981 and 1982 it was expanded with a new "L" shaped section that surrounds the original building in two of its sides. The main façade displays a symmetric composition with a large arch at its centre surrounding the access and supported by two ionic columns. On the sides, two pairs of rendered pilasters enclosing the oval portholes, under an entablature with cornice and frieze, crowned with a flat tympanum pediment.

Since 1982 is named after Manuel Serra i Moret, mayor of Pineda and prominent Catalan politician.