A drop of natural water

This article also available on Hudin.com to Personal & Commercial subscribers.

In every Catalan village, the casal is always a four-walled testament to the religion of concrete-prone architecture that dominated Spanish construction in the later 20th century.

They’re always a far cry from the ajuntament or casa de vila which is usually housed in some historic building. And if not a pretty building, it’s a structure incredibly modern with massive windows—they say when it rains, you can hear money drip from the glass.

The casal does only as much as it needs which is exist as a gathering point for residents when agglomerations larger than chats in the street are called for. To call the casal a “town hall” would be nearly correct where it not for the fact that a village with only several hundred residents hardly qualifies to be called a “town”.