Can Casasayas and the Pensión Menorquina

Monuments | Palma de Mallorca

These are two buildings that were designed simultaneously, with an identical composition. They are known as the Casasayas house and the Pensión Menorquina and are separated by a narrow street (C/ Santacília). An overhead adjoining passageway had been designed for this street, but was never built upon the decision of the city council. The two buildings were completed a year apart, their construction taking place between 1908-1910 and 1909-1911. Can Casasayas was designed as an apartment building with commercial premises on the ground floor. The two buildings present similar resolutions, both in terms of their interior layout and in their façades. Both buildings have a ground floor and four upper floors, in which all the bedrooms are located on the façade side, providing perfect lighting for the interior. The treatment of the façades is identical in both cases and is determined by the modernist style, drawing from the Art Nouveau trend. The Gaudí influence, particularly his Casa Batlló, can be seen in the parabolic arches of windows and doorways and in the undulating treatment of the building. The materials used include wrought iron in the balconies, wood in the blinds - these are adapted to the undulating form of the façade, and local sandstone. The decoration may be scarce but it is nevertheless highly original, based on the stylised details of flowers in columns and butterflies (etc.). The initials JCC (Josep Casasayas Casajuana) can be made out in the façade of the building to the right, in reference to the owner and developer. Guillem Reynés oversaw the end of the management of works on the Pensión, after Francesc Roca i Simó moved to Argentina in 1909, where he would design a great number of works influenced by Catalan modernism.