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The first
documentary reference we find to the church of Santa
Maria del Mar is in a text from the year 998. This basilica
is the work of the architect Berenguer de Montagut,
and the first stone was laid to commemorate the conquest
of Sardinia, which completed the Catalan domination
in the Mediterranean initiated ten years earlier with
the conquest of Mallorca, and which reached its fullest
extent with the entry of Sicily and Greece into the
domains of the House of Barcelona.
Externally, it is the only perfectly-finished Catalan
Gothic church. Its outer walls display the features
which differentiate Catalan Gothic from European.
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In the Catalan style,
there is a predominance of horizontal lines, of solid
panels over empty spaces, of flat terraces without roofs,
and a preference for large bare surfaces. The buttresses
are swithout flying buttresses as in the European Gothic
cathedrals, and the towers are octagonal and flat-topped.
The interior of the church is of an extraordinary beauty
and has exceptional acoustic conditions that make it
an ideal space for concerts, usually of classical and
Oriental music but occasionally of jazz.
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