Girona Cemetery

Girona Cemetery (Cementiri de Girona) is the city's municipal burial ground, located on the grounds of Sant Daniel just outside the old town boundaries, best known today for its monumental Noucentista facade designed by architect Rafael Masó.

How did the cemetery take its current form?

The present-day cemetery dates back to the first third of the 19th century, when Girona's scattered parish cemeteries were consolidated into a single, general-purpose facility built outside the urban core. None of the original fabric from 1846–1847 has survived: a modernist refurbishment carried out in 1897 saw the boundary wall, the administration building, and the chapel rebuilt in brick and masonry. Despite this rebuilding, the chapel retained a form faithful to the purist, revolutionary neoclassicism of 1851, centered on a large Tuscan portico set axially within the grounds and topped by a small circular dome.

What was Rafael Masó's contribution?

In 1917, Girona's municipal government held a competition for a new cemetery facade, which was won by Rafael Masó, one of the leading Catalan architects of the Noucentista movement. His design called for a boundary wall running parallel to the Sant Feliu road, flanked at each end by a pair of pavilions — a caretaker's house and a chapel — with a new central gate that was ultimately never built. The wall was raised in local Girona stone and crowned with a ceramic frieze bearing sculptural elements of symbolic character. The end pavilions combined grey stone from Quart, worked at the Can Marcó workshop, with Girona stone and glazed ceramics from La Bisbal. Built between 1917 and 1919, this wall marked the final work of Masó's purely Noucentista period.

What does the facade's decoration represent?

The sculptural program was conceived as an allegory of "the origin, action and destruction of death," meant to be read from left to right along the wall — a cycle that was ultimately left unfinished at its central section. Even so, what remains stands as a striking whole: an almost Cyclopean, heavy construction, a cheerful yellow-striped ceramic frieze along the top, the use of black terracotta, and zoomorphic and symbolic reliefs. Together these elements draw on early Christian iconography and the religious sensibility characteristic of Noucentisme, while also reflecting a more introspective, personal moment in the architect's career.

How has the cemetery evolved since then?

As the capacity of the original 1821 cemetery — which had already been expanded through 1985 — approached its limits, a new masterplan was drawn up for roughly 20,000 traditional burial plots. As a result, today's Cementiri de Girona layers several historical periods within a single enclosure: a 19th-century neoclassical chapel, Masó's early 20th-century Noucentista facade, and later structural expansions built to serve the growing city.

Frequently asked questions

Who designed the facade of Girona Cemetery? The facade was designed by Rafael Masó, who won the competition held by Girona's city council in 1917.

What materials were used for the wall and pavilions? Builders used Girona stone, grey stone from Quart, and glazed ceramics produced in La Bisbal.

Does the original 19th-century chapel survive in its original form? The physical fabric from 1846–1847 has not survived — the chapel was rebuilt in 1897, though it kept a form consistent with the 1851 neoclassical design.

Why is the sculptural cycle on the facade unfinished? The planned allegorical sequence was left incomplete at its central section; the exact reasons are not documented in the available sources.