Monument to Lluís Companys

In the middle of the park that bears his name, very close to the river and surrounded by lime trees, the monument dedicated to Lluís Companys, president of the Republican Generalitat, shot in 1940, has been erected since 2008. Work of the Municipal Technical Services of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, the ensemble is committed to a fully contemporary and abstract language: two steel plates cut with unequal proportions - the one on the east side is slimmer, the one on the west is wider - are laid out on a pavement of stones and mortar that marks the perimeter, drawing a flat plan. a semicircle that invites the visitor to walk around it.

The main plate, just over three meters high, acts as an “open book” on which the dedication to Companys is engraved; the second, moved a few palms back, generates a subtle play of shadows that varies to the rhythm of the sun and recalls, metaphorically, the polyhedral footprint of the politician. The material chosen is not accidental: steel, exposed to the weather, creates with rust a living patina that evokes the passage of time, the harshness of repression and, at the same time, the strength of collective memory. The cobbled pavement, with a humble and wine-like aesthetic, connects the work with the Penedès environment that identifies the municipality so well.

The project was born as a result of a citizen initiative to provide Sant Sadurní with an institutional memory space for the martyred president. The council approved the proposal in 2007 and, the following year, coinciding with the events of the 68th anniversary of the shooting, the monument was inaugurated with a floral offering, parliaments of the memorialist entities and the performance of El Cant dels Ocells by students of the School of Music. Since then, every October 15, the park becomes a meeting point for the annual tribute, but it also hosts school events of historical dissemination and guided tours of the program “Paths of Memory”.

Architecturally, the complex maintains a prudent staircase that does not compete with the trees or the neighboring sports court; the height allows the inscription to be read without stridency and, at the same time, it protrudes enough to locate it from any point of the promenade. At night, two LED spotlights bathe the metal surface and reveal reddish hues that transform the space into an intimate, almost collected corner. Despite its formal simplicity, the monument contains a strong symbolic load: the duality of plates alludes to the Companys man and the Companys institution; the gap between the two is interpreted as the space of freedom and hope that the president claimed until the end.

The good state of conservation is the result of regular municipal maintenance, consisting of the periodic removal of aggressive surface oxidations and the replacement of the pebble bed. There are no architectural barriers and access is completely open 24 hours a day, which favors the spontaneous visit, the restful reading of the dedication and the civic use of the green environment.

In addition to its commemorative function, the space has become the scene of numerous cultural activities: poetry recitals, acoustic concerts or even the final stop of some historical routes that explain the anti-Franco struggle in the Alt Penedès. The monument to Lluís Companys is, therefore, much more than a sculpture: it is a point of articulation of local democratic memory and a permanent invitation to dialogue with the past in order to build a more just future.

Open to visitors: Yes
Accessible: Yes
More information: Link 1