1938-2021

The Catalan architect and poet Joan Margarit died in Sant Just Desvern on 14 February 2021 at 82 years of age. Born in the town of Lleida where his parents – an architect and a teacher – took shelter during the Civil War, Margarit soon felt a double calling. On one hand, the calling of architecture, to which he committed with the rigor of the Chair Professor of Structures that he came to be, and which he practiced with his inseparable partner Carles Buxadé in works like the renewed Vapor Aymerich of Tarrasa, the Montjuic Stadium for the Olympic Games of Barcelona or the polemical construction works at the Sagrada Familia. And on the other hand, his dedication to poetry, to which he devoted his exact and emotional voice, innovative and stoic, in books written in Catalan but soon translated into his other language, Spanish, like Càlcul d’estructures, Casa de Misericòrdia, Els primers freds or Es perd el senyal. While remaining a respected architect, Margarit earned the highest recognitions as writer: after receiving the National Poetry Prize and the National Literature Prize of the Generalitat, in 2019 he received the Cervantes Award, the most prestigious of Spanish literature.