Despatx de l’aigua
This nineteenth-century building was designed by Josep Maria Pericas and built in 1923. In the past, it became an essential meeting point for holiday makers, since they went there to have social life while drinking water from the Font Picant (a spring).
The building is made of stone, covered with a gabled roof and its façade is perfectly symmetrical. It has two large semicircular portals crowned by a cornice, two windows and a balcony which looks out onto two large-semicircular windows with drawings representing the inhabitants’ everyday life. The roof tiles are made of greenish ceramic. .
HISTORY
In 1923, the Ribot family commissioned the architect Josep Maria Pericas to construct a building in the centre of the town. That building was an open room where all the holiday makers and people from Sant Hilari could go and drink some water from the Font Picant. That way, people who couldn’t go to the spring itself had the possibility to treat their illness in an easier way. At first, the aim of the place was just to take some water, but it became a social place, a meeting point for many people who spent the summer in the town. Moreover, the space was also used for exhibitions and paintings.
Apart from the water from the Font Picant, there was also natural water. It is said that many people took water from there because it was really good, but in fact, it was the same water people had in their homes.
In 1987, the office was closed since the demand for that water decreased.
