Muralla de la Presó, 2
This is a singular and unique building. If you look exclusively at the façade, Mataró Prison looks like a fortified house, but don’t be fooled. The originality of this brick construction lies in its shape, which you can perceive from the Pati del Cafè Nou, the name given to the rear square.
The architect Elies Rogent designed this prison in the novel “panopticon” style. This prison architecture, developed by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, was intended to allow all the inmates to be kept in check from the centre of the courtyard, thanks to a central watchtower and a semi-circular body where the prisoners’ cells were contained.
Mataró prison, built in 1851, is one of the first buildings by Elies Rogent, the top Catalan exponent of historicist architecture. Rogent was also responsible for the University of Barcelona building and the restoration of the Monastery of Ripoll. He has been considered the master of several Catalan modernist architects, such as Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Muntaner.
And one last curiosity! Although the building was no longer used as a prison from 1967, its walls still bear its inmates’ graffiti.
