Josep Lluis Sert i López (Barcelona 1902 -1983) is considered one of the most important architects of the 20th century and was one of the introducers of modern architecture in Spain. He was a son of a bourgeois Catalan family of textile industrialists, but socially committed and with democratic ideals.
In 1923 he entered the School of Architecture of Barcelona and was critical of the teaching methods of that time. Therefore, together with Josep Torres Clavé he founded the Association of Students of the School (1926), the embryo of the future GATCPAC (Group of Catalan Architects and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture). Sert finished his studies in 1929 and moved to Paris, where he worked in the architectuire firm of Le Corbusier. From then on both of them maintained a close professional and academic relationship.
In 1930, Sert and Torres Clavé promoted the foundation of GATCPAC and in 1932 the GATEPAC (Group of Spanish Architects and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture). In its first board of directors were the architects Rodríguez Arias, Illescas, Churruca and Alzamora, and later Subirana, A. Bonet and others joined aswell. This was the introductory group in the State of the modern movement of architecture, “the Nouveau Spirit” and the rationalistic and avant-garde tendencies. This group also edited the magazine A.C. (Documents of Contemporary Activity), published between 1931 and 1937, which constituted a platform of knowledge of the artistic expressions and diffusion of the new tendencies, aswell as architecture and urbanism, photography, visual and decorative arts, literature, gardening and furniture. GATEPAC has also been involved in the improvement of other areas, with proposals such as the construction of schools, the reduction of illiteracy and basically the modernization of the Spanish education system.
