Reus 1900. Festa Modernista:
experience it inside Casa Navàs
From 7 to 11 October, Reus travels back more than a hundred years with a new edition of Reus 1900. Festa Modernista. For five days, the streets, squares and some of the city’s most iconic buildings recover the atmosphere, characters and stories of the Reus that experienced the height of Modernism.
And there is a very special way to experience this celebration: from inside Casa Navàs.
Built at the beginning of the 20th century by Lluís Domènech i Montaner for the merchants Joaquim Navàs and Pepa Blasco, Casa Navàs preserves many of its original spaces and features, allowing us to discover Modernism in an authentic setting.
For Reus 1900. Festa Modernista, the house offers two experiences that go beyond a conventional visit and invite us to discover how people lived, worked and even viewed the world at the beginning of the 20th century.
La Forma de Mirar
Looking is not just seeing.
La Forma de Mirar is a visit through the noble floor of Casa Navàs, focused on perception and observation within the distinctive world of the great creators of Modernism, such as Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner.
The experience invites us to observe the architecture, but also to pay attention to the artisans who made it possible, the small details of everyday life and a society undergoing profound transformation.
As we move through the different spaces of the house, we discover how new currents of thought, including the hygienist movement, changed habits, customs and the way domestic spaces were understood and inhabited.
Because looking is a way of seeing, but also of observing, understanding and discovering everything that, at first glance, might otherwise go unnoticed.
A story that begins with a visit
A group of architecture students, pupils of Domènech i Montaner, arrive in Reus eager to discover Casa Navàs.
Lluís Bru, one of the artisans involved in the construction of the building, will welcome them and show them the house from a different perspective: through the eyes of someone who knows the work through craftsmanship, materials and the smallest details.
But Lluís Bru will not be the only one inviting them to look more closely.
Who else will show them their own particular way of seeing Casa Navàs?
Entreteles
And from the noble floor, we move down to the commercial heart of Cal Navàs.
Entreteles takes us into the everyday life of Casa Navàs’s historic textile shop through an original theatrical production created especially for Reus 1900. Festa Modernista.
Bourgeois ladies, shop assistants, apprentices and sales representatives allow us to discover the social relationships, hierarchies and dynamics that lay behind one of the most important textile businesses in early 20th-century Reus.
The story transforms the former shop into a living stage and helps us understand that Casa Navàs was not only a Modernist residence: it was also a place of work, commerce and social interaction, closely connected to the economic life of the city.
Written and directed by Irene Benavent and performed by local actors and actresses, Entreteles brings back everyday characters and situations to immerse us in the Reus of that period in a direct, engaging and theatrical way.
This Reus 1900, step inside Casa Navàs
Would you like to discover what everyday life was like in Casa Navàs’s historic textile shop, in an area that has never before been opened to the public? Don’t miss the return of Entreteles, a theatrical performance that can only be seen during the weekend of Reus 1900. Festa Modernista. The show reveals the daily life of the space, the relationships between the different social classes of the time and the dynamics of a business that played such an important role in the city of Reus.
Among bourgeois ladies, apprentices and managers, we will discover what an ordinary day was like in the Cal Navàs shop.
This Casa Navàs production, directed by Irene Benavent, features ten local actors and actresses. Come and enjoy this theatrical performance in a unique setting: the back room of Casa Navàs.
