The Falguera Palace

The Falguera Palace and its gardens date from the 17th Century, when Jaume Falguera built up a great palace whose gardens spread up to the Llobregat River. Some historical sources say that King Phillip V stayed in the Falguera Palace at the beginning of the 18th Century.

Until 1988 this historical resort belonged to the Marquis of Castellbell, a descendant of Jaume Falguera. In 1995 the building, currently comprising a palace of 4,000 m2 and its surrounding gardens, was bought by the City Council of Sant Feliu de Llobregat in order to rebuild it.

Nowadays these gardens, with an extension of 1.5 hectares, are a public park. The palace holds several municipal services and since 2006 hosts the National Exhibition of Roses, linking the two more emblematic and representative symbols of Sant Feliu de Llobregat.

The National Exhibition of Roses

Since 1928 Sant Feliu has been organizing rose exhibitions. In 2008 the 50th National Exhibition of Roses, along with the 80th anniversary of rose exhibitions, were celebrated in Sant Feliu. This is the reason why on that date we wanted to pay tribute to all those years of dedication and hard work to create and spread rose beauty, a symbol of our town, as well as to the citizens’ interest in keeping this tradition alive.

80 years of history

Pere Dot, born in Sant Feliu, was the main instigator of the first exhibition of roses held in our town in 1928. The Spanish Civil War kept on hold exhibitions of roses until 1949, when a new exhibition was held in Sant Feliu and the City Council granted it with a building, the Unió Coral. At that time, the exhibition showed roses created by great rose breeders such as Dot, Camprubí or Torreblanca. That was when the first amateur contests were held.

In 1957 the exhibition was declared National and continued its historical trajectory with the presence of the important families Dot and Camprubí. Sant Feliu de Llobregat is known as “The City of Roses” due to this great tradition.

Linked to the rose tradition in our city, the National Exhibition of Roses has always been considered as a cultural activity. Moreover since 1996 there is a space aimed at promoting rose plantation and growth for the citizens of Sant Feliu, which was first placed in the Vila square and is now in the Torreblanca Park.

General Features

Hosted in the Falguera Palace, the Exhibition covers a total area of 15,000 m2. Floral productions, exhibitions and related activities are placed all over the building, both in the palace and in its gardens.

Regarding its gardens and outdoors areas, we would like to point out the different designs in the park, such as the cave, the terraces and their accesses, the acclimatized tents in the garden and terraces, the exhibitions held in the porches of the palace and other outdoors areas, as well as the workshops, meetings and demonstrations of floral, ikebana and bonsai arts carried out during the Exhibition, and the area addressed to exhibiting and selling craft products containing rose essence or shaped as roses or rosebushes.

We would also like to point out the exhibitions that are usually organized around the porches of the Palace and the entrance to the National Exhibition of Roses, such as the ones about ancient and modern books about roses, about gathered files from all around the world on this flower or about catalogues, postcards, bookmarks and great pictures of roses created by Catalan breeders and of Dog roses and their fruits.

Professionals such as rose producers, gardeners, flower shop owners, along with rose enthusiasts, are responsible for the floral exhibitions and the gardens.
The collaboration and participation of amateurs in the National Exhibition of Roses keep the different rose contests going on: amateur contest, popular contest, best rose contest, most scented rose contest, rose contest for children, miniatures contest, polyanthus rose contest and ikebana contest.

The role of the Association Friends of the Rose in this event is also important both for their collaboration in promoting and spreading their activities, and for their members’ participation in the roses contests and the ikebana exhibition. Furthermore, year after year the association devises a section that shows a range of products crafted with roses, which can be used as decoration for home, as personal complements and as cooking ingredients. Our entity also provides with books and other materials intended to spread rose culture.

Inside the Falguera Palace -in its noble chambers like Vanos and Austria or in its Chapel-, we can find floral productions whose elements represent a situation, an image or a place centered on roses. In 2008, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Sant Feliu’s exhibitions, the floral production covered the roses created in each decade, from the twenties until today, as well as a futuristic production that concluded the exhibition. To set up this, the Association Friends of the Rose collaborated with several flower shops.

The Exhibition Hall held during the Springtime Festival is also important. This hall is addressed to host exhibitions directly linked with roses and out city’s rose breeding history and tradition. In 2008 this hall held an exhibition showing a historical journey about the rose meaning for our city throughout the last 80 years, remembering special occasions and remarkable people.

This exhibition was organized with the collaboration of the Baix Llobregat’s County Archive, and was named “Roses in their essence, Sant Feliu de Llobregat 1928-2008”. It was so successful that three DVDs were launched: Words of Roses, covering most of our latest town criers; Roses on Scene 1928-2008, covering the history represented in the exhibition, and Rose Breeders, a compilation of our main rose breeders.

Other contests linked to this event are: Posters contest, Lacemakers contest, Window Displays contest, Photography Rosa d’Or contest.