Village
Terrassa, the ancient Ègara, is a city and municipality in the province of Barcelona that shares with Sabadell the capital status of the comarca of Vallès Occidental, 18 km from Barcelona. With 233,270 inhabitants, it is the third most populous city in Catalonia. It lies to the south of the Sant Llorenç del Munt massif, on the Riera de les Arenes, in the Vallès-Penedès tectonic trench; its northern sector forms part of the Sant Llorenç del Munt i l'Obac natural park. The first settlers of the area date back to the Neolithic, and the Can Missert site preserves a Bronze Age necropolis. The city preserves one of the most important early Christian episcopal complexes in Europe and a rich modernist and industrial heritage, and is the seat of the diocese of Terrassa.
Monument
The Carthusian castle of Vallparadís stands beside the stream of the same name, in Terrassa, and is today the main section of the Museu de Terrassa. The first fortification on the site is documented in 1110, when Berenguer de Sanlà bought the land from Count Ramon Berenguer III to build his manorial residence there. In 1344 Blanca de Centelles handed the castle over to Carthusian monks from Escaladei, who converted it into a monastery, adding the cloister, the chapter house and the chapel; the community moved to Tiana in 1413. It later passed to the Carmelites and to the Sentmenat family until 1830, and later to the Maurí family, who ceded it to the Town Council in 1947, which installed the museum there in 1959. It retains a two-storey cloister with pointed arches and the former monastery church, today called the Tinellet.
Monument
A natural urban park that runs through Terrassa following the course of the Riera de Vallparadís, whose construction began in 1991 according to the design of Manuel Ribas i Piera, after several earlier 19th- and 20th-century proposals. Declared a historic-artistic site in 1951, it holds Pleistocene fossil deposits at Cal Guardiola and remains of the old Iberian settlement of Egosa, the origin of the Egara that gave rise to present-day Terrassa. It has the shape of a Y due to the confluence of the Vallparadís and Monner streams, next to the Romanesque group of the churches of Sant Pere. It also houses the Carthusian castle of Vallparadís, from the year 1110, the main seat of the Museu de Terrassa, and the Documentation Centre and Textile Museum.
Monument
The Torre del Palau is the only remnant of the castle-palace of Terrassa, which at the height of its power dominated a wide territory between the Llobregat and the Ripoll. Documented since 1016, the keep served as a prison well into the 19th century and was the only structure left standing when in 1891 the last owner demolished the rest of the building; ceded to the municipality in 1994, it is today a section of the Museu de Terrassa. It is a Romanesque building with a circular plan, 26.70 m high and 7.5 m in diameter at the base, built with stream cobbles and dressed stone, divided into several levels with stone and brick vaulting, with a Gothic window added around the 16th century; the top, from the late 19th century, is the work of Lluís Muncunill.
Monument
The church of Sant Pere de Terrassa is part of the episcopal complex of Ègara, seat of a bishopric created around the year 450 when it split off from that of Barcelona, and which lost importance with the Muslim invasion of the 8th century. The present building, from the 12th century, preserves early medieval paintings and some walls and elements of the original 6th-century construction. It is the largest of the complex's three churches, together with Sant Miquel and Santa Maria, with a trilobed apse and transept, and holds a 10th-century stone altarpiece considered unique of its kind. The complex was declared a national monument in 1931 and a historic-artistic asset in 1985, and today it is part of the Museu de Terrassa.
Monument
Church of Santa Maria de Terrassa, in the Vallès Occidental (Barcelona), the former cathedral of Ègara, an episcopal seat until it disappeared in the 8th century. The present Romanesque building was consecrated on 2 January 1112 by the Bishop of Barcelona Ramon Guillem, with a Latin-cross plan and barrel vaults; the apse, with 5th-century structures, combines the horseshoe plan of the early paleo-Christian cathedral with the 12th-century Romanesque nave. It preserves geometric mosaics from the primitive basilica, some of them from the 5th century, Roman pedestals with inscriptions from around the year 140, 6th-century mural paintings in the apse, a 4th-century baptistery and font, and the Gothic altarpiece of Saints Abdon and Senen, from 1460, the work of Jaume Huguet.
Monument
The church of Sant Miquel is part, together with those of Sant Pere and Santa Maria, of the complex of the Esglésies de Sant Pere de Terrassa, the former episcopal see of Ègara established around the year 450 in the Visigothic settlement that gave rise to today's Sant Pere neighbourhood. Restored and excavated in the first third of the 20th century by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, the three churches were declared a national monument in 1931 and today, following a museographic reorganization in 2009, form part of the Museu de Terrassa. It is one of the most important artistic complexes in the city and one of the jewels of Catalan Romanesque art.
Monument
The Vapor Aymerich, Amat i Jover is a former textile factory on the Rambla d'Ègara in Terrassa, the work of the architect Lluís Muncunill built between 1907 and 1908, considered the most important modernist industrial building in Catalonia and declared a BCIN in 2019. It was founded in 1908 by the industrialists Josep Aymerich, Pau Amat and Francesc Jover to process wool; from 1920 the spinning mills moved to Fígols and the factory specialized in weaving, until it closed in 1976 following the floods of 1962. The complex, with an 11,000 m² floor and a 42-metre chimney, stands out for its roof of Catalan vaults with sawtooth skylights, supported by 300 cast-iron columns. The Generalitat bought it in 1983 and it today houses the Museu de la Ciència i de la Tècnica de Catalunya.
Monument
The Masia Freixa is a modernist building located in the Parc de Sant Jordi in Terrassa, built in the late 19th century as a spinning mill and remodelled between 1907 and 1914 by the architect Lluís Muncunill, who turned it into the family residence of the textile industrialist Josep Freixa i Argemí. Muncunill made it one of the jewels of local modernisme, with a structure of arches and vaults of Gaudí-like inspiration, walls painted white and a tall tower. For many years it housed the Municipal Music Conservatory, today moved to a new building on the University Campus. Since 2023 the building has been a Cultural Asset of National Interest.
Monument
Railway station in an eclectic style opened in 1899 on the plaça de l'Estació of Terrassa (Vallès Occidental), today also an interchange for Rodalies and FGC on the passeig Vint-i-dos de Juliol. It belongs to Adif and forms part of the Barcelona-Manresa-Lleida line, with stops for Rodalies lines R4 and RL4 operated by Renfe, and takes its name from the former Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro del Norte de España, which originally operated it. It also connects with the Terrassa metro, an extension of line S1 of the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat. In 2022 the ATM changed the name of the Rodalies station, previously called simply Terrassa, to match its popular name. In 2019 it recorded 2,415,000 passengers on Adif and 731,956 on FGC.
Monument
The Casa Alegre de Sagrera is a museum building on Carrer de la Font Vella, in Terrassa. It was the manor house of Joaquim de Sagrera, a textile manufacturer of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who played a prominent role in the Peninsular War; it was badly damaged by the Napoleonic invasion, and its present appearance is the result of the modernist renovation carried out between 1911 and 1912 by the municipal architect Melcior Viñals, in the time of the successors of the original owner, Francesc Alegre i Roig and Mercè de Sagrera. In the mid-20th century, a local press campaign prevented a renovation that would have spoiled the building; the town council acquired it in 1973, and it has been open to the public ever since, with the house and gardens. Today it is a section of the Museum of Terrassa.
Nature
The turó de Sant Pere, in Terrassa, is a rocky spur formed at the confluence of the Vallparadís and Monner streams, on the site of the old Visigothic settlement of Ègara. On its upper platform stands the monumental group of the Romanesque churches of Sant Pere, Sant Miquel and Santa Maria. The site was chosen as early as Roman times as a municipal seat, and later as an episcopal see, precisely because of its geographical and defensive position against barbarian invasions.
Activity
The Festa Major of Terrassa (Barcelona) is celebrated on the first Sunday after Saint Peter's day, 29 June, so it usually falls on the first Sunday of July; it begins on the preceding Friday afternoon and ends the following Wednesday, with the first three days as the main ones and Monday as a local holiday. It is celebrated in honour of Saint Peter, Saint Christopher and Saint Valentine. On Friday a candle is lit at the town hall and the Drac de Terrassa comes down from the mountains, recalling the víbria of Sant Llorenç del Munt; at night the pregó is read, the mayor opens the festival and giants, stick dancers, dwarfs and the eagle of Terrassa dance, while the Capgròs of the Year is unveiled, a giant-headed figure honouring a popular character. The castellers' diada and the Raval Infernal are also highlights.
Activity
The Fira Modernista of Terrassa has been held every May since 2003 and has become, within a few years, one of Catalonia's leading tourist events, with more than a hundred thousand visitors over a weekend full of cultural, culinary and children's activities, shows and exhibitions. It is the great festival of Catalan Modernisme, in which modernist towns and craftspeople and artists from across the country take part, recreating the modernist and industrial Terrassa of the early 20th century, a lively, colourful and innovative period that left a deep mark on the city's landscape, one of the capitals of Catalan industrial Modernisme, which has managed to preserve and enhance an extraordinary heritage of factories, steam mills, warehouses and public buildings now turned into a driving force for its tourism promotion.
Curiosity
Unique monumental complex spanning from the Iberian period to the present day, with Iberian and Roman remains and an Early Christian episcopal complex of the 5th to 8th centuries.
Historical milestone
Alfonso XII granted Terrassa the title of city in 1877, at the height of the take-off of its wool industry. The steam mills, the warehouses and the manufacturers' houses reordered the urban fabric and left the group of modernist industrial architecture that is walked today.
Activity
Central market of Terrassa, inaugurated on 14 November 1908 to a design by Antoni Pascual and Melcior Vinyals. Its three fan-shaped halls total some 3,400 square metres over fifty cast-iron columns and bring together stalls of fish, meat, fruit and catering.