The Murals in Can Culí

At the beginning of the 2019, the town council asked Josep Nogué Mas, who has painted several murals in the town, to paint some murals on the ground floor of Can Culí: two buildings of subsidised housing which now are located in a place which used to be a former house known as Can Culí.

Can Culí was Tomàs Culí Verdaguer’s house (1877-1961), a man who was the mayor of Sant Hilari between 1906 and 1911. After the Spanish Civil War, the house was expropriated and turned into the headquarters of La Falange (a Spanish fascist political organisation).

Over the years, the house was managed by Adigsa (now Incasol). After being demolished, it was replaced by two blocks of 11 flats and commercial ground floors. The flats were assigned to their tenants in 2010. However, the ground floors are still being unused and the shop windows are mortared with bricks.

With this situation, the town council asked for a project in order to make these shop windows a bit more beautiful. They wanted images showing the town’s landscape, fauna and culture. It was impossible to paint a lot of elements and details because of the ribbed texture of the brick. Therefore, Josep Nogué opted for drawing stylised and colourful shapes which remind the inhabitants the elements of our land rather than representing the real elements. He wanted to motivate the visitors to discover the environment around us.

The mural was done between March and April 2019 by Josep Nogué and the collaboration of Montse Serras.