Jordi Tell, arquitecte i activista republicà

Jordi Tell, architect and Republican activist. Funding body: Government of Catalonia. Ministry of Governance and Institutional Relations. Directorate-General of Institutional Relations and with the Parliament. Subdirectorate-General of Memory, Peace and Human Rights. Budget: €8,500. Period: 2014-2015.

A project consisting of documentary research and field work about the life and work of Jordi Tell Novellas (Barcelona, 1907 - Fredrikstad, Norway, 1991). Although he graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture in 1931 and was a member of the reform movement led by José Luis Sert, he spent most of his life far from Catalonia. His political militancy in the Catalan Nationalist Party and his involvement in the Events of October 1934 forced him into exile in Berlin, from which he would never return. He moved to Norway at the end of the Civil War, where he was a member of the Norwegian resistance against the Nazi occupation, and subsequently, his political exile took him to Mexico. A personal turn of events led him to temporarily abandon his profession and begin a diplomatic career in the service of the government of the Spanish Republic. First as consul in Hamburg (1936), later as chargé d’affaires in Oslo (1938) and lastly as representative of the Republic in Exile in the Scandinavian Countries (1946). He abandoned this diplomatic career after Spain’s entry in the United Nations. Returning to Norway, he resumed his architectural career, although without ever abandoning his political militancy. He continued to work for the rights of Catalonia from the party Estat Català. However, he also engaged politically with his adoptive country, taking part in the regional government of the county of Østfold as a member of the Sosialistisk Folkeparti (Norwegian Socialist Popular Party).