Món Casteller. The Human Towers Experience

Món Casteller. The Human Tower Museum of Catalonia (MCC in Catalan) is a museum project that is being built in the city of Valls, capital of the Alt Camp and considered as the birthplace and zero point for human towers. The project is designed as a place of reference for the human tower universe where experiences can be lived out. The initiative is being developed through a Consortium made up of the Catalan Government’s Department of Culture, the Tarragona County Council, Valls City Hall and the Coordinator of Catalan Human Tower Groups. The Catalan Government will preside the consortium and Valls City Hall will execute the museum and secretariat works.

The proposal to create a museum dedicated to human towers in the city of Valls is strongly linked to the Valls historian and photographer Pere Català Roca. At the end of the 50’s he was already leading a proposal to set up a centre that would spread the human tower culture. Accordingly, exhibitions were held in Valls and in Tarragona, in 1964 and in 1968 respectively, to back up the proposal that Català Roca presented once again during the 1977 Congress of Catalan Culture and in the 1982 Congress on Traditional and Popular Culture.

The Human Tower of Museum of Catalonia’s first “board meeting” was held on the 26th of July 1978 and consisted of a president, Francesc Manresa Baró, and 13 other members: Ramon Trilla Gatell, Joan Cusidó Rodriguez (Colla Vella dels Xiquets de Valls), Joan Enric Ribé (Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls), Joan Rafí Fontanillas, Josep Mª Rodón Barrufet, Jordi Badia Cucurull, Joan Climent Ferré, Lluís Fàbregas Pla, Josep Busquets Odena, Josep Casanova Coll, Josep Secall Duch, Pere Català i Roca and Jaume Casanova "Crossa".

The initiative would be taken up by the Valls Institute of Studies, creating a commission in 1984 that would offer continuity to the other actions that the entity had already been carrying out, like the human tower exhibition held in the Old Hospital of Sant Roc in 1981. It moved to the Can Segarra building in 1985, in Plaça del Blat number 9, where a permanent exhibition was set up to coincide with the city’s Main Sant Joan Festival. Due to structural defects, the property was forced to close down just two years later.

In 1997 a new phase was started in which the drafting of the museum project began. It was drafted by a commission of specialists who were convened by the Catalan Government’s Department of Culture, Valls City Hall and the Valls Museum.

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Wikipedia