ModernismArt Nouveau, Art Nouveau, Modern Style, Judengdstil or Stile Liberty are names under which several of these styles are grouped. stylistic currents with unitary profiles that at the beginning of the twentieth century met at the areas of increased industrialization who knew how to turn them into a consumer fashion by the industrial and mercantile bourgeoisie.
In the desire to create a new style, modernism was filled with historical memories with a point of inspiration that came from nature and everything that made the undulating line possible. Modernism represented a true cult of modernity. decoration at the service of architecture but in a way that never interferes with the functionality of the building, thus becoming an international style that embraces all western countries and all applied arts including industrial design and, of course, the stained glass. Thanks to the new materials provided by industry, such as iron and glass, they will find new forms of expression disseminated by architects who cultivate design and certain craft activities that had almost fallen into oblivion.
In Catalonia there was a greater tradition of proximity and contact with European traditions which facilitated that, at the end of the 19th century, a series of architects decided to separate themselves from the eclectic style and the nineteenth-century revivalism to become more receptive to European culture. Enrique Sarnier, José Puig i Cadafalch, Doménech i Montaner and Gaudí himself, will be the protagonists of Renaissance modernism.
At first, his works at the end of the century are still characterized by the presence of a medieval historicist repertoire of Catalanist exaltation that ends with the loss of the last colonies in 1898. From the first stage, the initial work of Puig i Cadafalch, Gaudí and Domenech i Montaner stands out.
A new stage followed between 1900 and 1914 (outbreak of the Great War). At this time, there was a renewal of the industrial arts and a reception of the ideas of Morris which takes the form of the promotion of industrial arts education in the Arts and Crafts spirit and the establishment of an school of arts and craftsceramics and iron industries, forge workshops, decorative sculpture, wood carving, and stained glass. It is a style based on the industry and local artists.
After World War I until the persistence of the last late forms of the 1920s. After Gaudí’s death in 1926, modernist architecture fell into oblivion and contempt until its rediscovery in the 1960s.
