Anverso y reverso: los edificios de viviendas Dubler Meyer y La Colmena

In the mid nineteen-fourties, Franscesc Mitjans designed an apartment building for the corner of
Av. General Mitre and c. Balmes in Barcelona. Approximately fi fteen years later he was to take
charge of the construction of another apartment building, just 500 m from his previous design,
at the corner of Av. General Mitre and c. Mandri.
The two sites are alike in very many ways. They are both located on corners with similar characteristics,
with an almost identical relationship to the bigger and smaller streets. The length of
façade in each case is similar, as are the pronounced changes of level across the sites. Together
they represent the beginning and end of a twenty-year phase in the architect’s professional life,
during which the Av. General Mitre was on his drawing board.
The city gives us the opportunity to compare these two buildings that share such similar site
conditions with the Av. General Mitre as a common element! Their physical proximity encourages
the comparisons to be made, while the fi fteen years that separate the two buildings mean that
there is also a time factor to be included. Over the course of these years the evolution of Mitjans’s
architectural language is quite signifi cant, as is that of the Av. General Mitre.