History of Tarrasa

There Tarrasa is a place full of history

The found vestiges indicate that the zone where Terrassa is placed was inhabited since prehistory. The year 2005, during the building work of a tunnel for one of the railway lines of the city, was found in the Park of Vallparadís a prehistoric site with stone tools and fossils of hunted animals of an antiquity among 800,000 and 1,000,000 years, which implies this is one of the oldest prehistoric sites in Europe. Terrassa has the origin in the old Roman municipality of Egara (Municipium Flavium Egara) founded during the time of the emperor Vespasian (69-79 bc) placed alongside the torrent of Vallparadís (nowadays an urban park) close to old Iberian town of Egosa, from where was found some ceramic and coins. Towards the half of the 5th century, in 450, the episcopal see of Ègara already was there, where was celebrated into 615 a Provincial Council, and there remained until VIIIth century,718, when occurred the Muslim conquest. At this placement there is today the monumental ensemble of the Visigothic-Romanesque churches of Sant Pere de Terrassa. Other important vestiges of the Middle Ages are the castle of Vallparadis (from the 1344 to the 1413 a Carthusian monks monastery and today a Municipal Museum) and the tower of Palau (of the Castle-Palace of the Count-king). In the XIXth century the city played an important role in the development of the industrial revolution with a special devotion to wool fabrics, today there is an important art nouveau legacy fruit of the importance that the city obtained. Buildings style art nouveau like Masia Freixa (1907), the vapor Aymerich Amat i Jover (1907), current Museum of the Science and the Technique of Catalonia, the Principal theater (1920), the Town hall (1902), the house-museum Alegre de Sagrera (1911), the Industrial School (1904), the Gran Casino (1920), the Parc de Desinfecció (1920), or the Independència market (1908) to only quote some of the most excelled. Terrassa is a partner city of the Art nouveau network a European network of co-operation created in 1999 for the study, safeguards and development of the Art nouveau.