Palau means palace in mallorcan language. The idea of palaces always was recognized as the king’s home, lord’s house or with the high classes in Europe.
The buildings use to be huge and mainly in the past they had all kinds of luxury things for their neighbors. The history of mallorcan palaces or mansions started in the XIII century. Nowadays they are the crown’s jewels. Palma has approximately 60 palaces that were built in different styles: medieval, gothic, baroque, renascence, etc.In those venues you can appreciate courtyards that were used as their main entrance as well as a meeting point for society. In several cases the family’s shield was showed in decorated marble columns or in windows, for example. In some courtyards still today you can find a well next to a place where people parked horses or carriages.
I had the opportunity to visit the Palau March. It is situated in the center of Palma next to the Cathedral and the Almudaina’s Palace.
The construction of this building started in 1939 and finished in 1945. During several years it was the residence of the family of the mallorcan banker Mr. Juan March Ordinas (1880-1962) who was considered the richest man of Mallorca at the beginning of the XX century.
The architecture of this stately house represents the catalan and the Italian styles.
Mr. Bartolomé March Servera, the son of Mr. Juan March, was the responsible for the creation of the Museum Palau March or Fundación Bartolomé March, that in my opinion, is a well known important source of culture in Mallorca.
He was born in 1917 in Palma and he died in 1998 in Paris. He was a lawyer. He was considered as a person devoted to works of art. He was also an art collector such as paintings, sculptures, books and old decorative objects.
This museum is huge, then I suggest you to visit it step by step:
- library - it was inaugurated in 1970 and it is an endless resource of informations about the Balearic Islands. There you find manuscripts, sixty thousand volumes of books, publishings and documents from the XIV century.
Timetable:
Monday, Wednesday and Friday : from 09:30H until 14:00H
Tuesday and Thursday: from 16:00H until 20:00H
Summer - Monday to Friday - from 09:30H until 14:00H
July: from 15 to 31
September : from 01 to 15
August: closed.
The entrance of this library is located at Carrer Conquistador, 13.
To acess the museum is necessary to go up the staircases next to Cappuccino Cafeteria until the end of the slope and turn left.
Its ticket office is at the main door. Ticket costs 4,5E (adult) and is free for children less than 12 years old.
You will enjoy the terrace’s building or well known as “patio de honor”. It is wide, elegant and full of sculptures from important worldwide artists.
The artists used a fantastic range of materials, concepts and trends such as:
- Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) - the work is “Torse d’homme qui tombe” - sculpture made of bronze which the author used the coupling technique or “assemblage”.Firstly this piece was modeled with clay and Rodin left his fingerprints in this torso.
Pignatelli, an Italian young man, was the model of this sculpture.
Max Bill (1908-1994) Swiss. He is considered the representative of the “Concrete Art”. He joined, harmoniously, the pedestal and the sculpture.
Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002) Spanish. He is considered one of the most important Spanish sculptor of the contemporary art. He worked with several materials such as iron, wood, concrete, stone etc. In this piece he used steel to build a set of structures in which the empty is included. It’s name: “Elogio de la Arquitectura II" from 1972. In my opinion, Chillida will be forever the creator of the opposite’s architecture.
You can see also works of Henry Moore, British (1898-1986) and Barbara Hepworth, British (1909-1975). They studied together, by coincidence, in Leeds College of Art, England.
I’m sure that a sculpture made by Andreu Alfaro, Spanish (1929-2012) will call your attention: “Lineas al Vento V”.
After entering this venue I suggest you to take a time to enjoy the Christmas Neapolitan Cript. It was bought in the 70’s and it became the jewel of the whole collection.
Mr Bartolomé March bought approximately 2.000 pieces to set up this fantastic work.
It is fantastic the wealth of details. The figures are between 10 cms and 50 cms tall and you will be surprised with their expressions, looks, movements of people, environments etc.
Another detail are the typical dresses of epoch as the buildings, animals, jewels etc. The Three Kings are present in this place. There are parades from different places from the east. Incredible!
Next to the Cript there are works that were made by Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) Spanish. He was artist, painter, sculptor representative of the Surrealism Art. Those works were dedicated to the alchemy and eternity.
Going up the staircases to the second floor you will see murals painted by Josep Sert (1874-1945) a Catalan artist who made works in Spain and abroad.
Aside from that I suggest to you that you visit the arc and boxes collection of the Foundation Bartolomé March. They are from the XII century until XVI century and they were made in ivory, wood, leather, metal etc and they are from Spain, France and Italy.
The official maps date from the XIV and XV century that were handmade with much precision. Incredible to see the countries description or regions without such modern devices as the GPS.
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