Once he had married Petra Enríquez and finally settled into Celanova, the notary José María Curros Vázquez native from Santiso, in Arzúa, A Coruña, decides to buy a small house placed at the back of the current Curros Enríquez Street with the aim of having his own house with a room.
These assets are increased in 1875 with the acquisition of the building next to the previous one and leading to Rollo Street, 20. At that moment it was half built and it only consisted of the external walls without any division.
This building would be the house of Curros Enríquez´s family and the child Manuel from that moment until the year 1965 when he left it because he did not agree with the strict familiar discipline imposed by the notary who is told, as an anecdote, that being taken by rage when his son stained a legal document that his father had made him copy in the protocol of his custody, José María Curros even threw at him a brazier through the window.
Afterwards, in a letter that he wrote to a friend of his, Curros Enríquez reflects the importance that that building had marked in his childhood. “I wish I could go with you to Celanova – he tells his friend – because unluckly I love that homeland where I was born, that village and that house where I cried so much until I was 15 when I left it fleeing from the paternal rage in order to throw myself into a sea full of storm where I live a continuous failure.
It was 1889 and “wishing to avoid the doubts and litigation that after my death could be raised among my inheritors”, José María Curros Vázquez makes his will in which he writes that a part of the building goes to the poet´s sister, Sofía Curros, and another part to Sofía and the writer´s own nieces, Pilar, Amalia e Isabel de la Cal Rico y Curros.
In January, 1892, Sofía Curros Enríquez sells her part to a neighbour of Celanova, while her nieces keep it for some time until 1916 when the board of directors of the society “Unión Orensana” of La Habana authorizes Modesto Fernández to take the necessary steps for the acquisition, “just in part or as a whole” of Curros Enríquez´s House, described by this group as a “priceless historic remain because it is the birthplace of one of the best Galician poets and the most virile of the Galician people”.
Pilar y Amalia de la Cal Rico y Curros end up selling for 16.000 pesetas the second floor, part of the first one, part of downstairs and a small vegetable garden of the house to the attorney of the “Unión Orensana” of La Habana.
With the pass of time, the other part of the building, that is, the possession inherited by Sofía Curros, would go to the property of a family outside to Curros Enríquez´s and finally to the González Calviño who were the last private owners of that part of the building.
On 10th, December, 1952, it appears in Ourense the Foundation Pro-House of Curros Enríquez with the aim of “acquiring the house where Curros Enríquez was born in order to give it the most convenient purpose: school, library, museum…” as it is recorded in the statutes of the Foundation. Unluckly this enterprise took a long time and it fell into oblivion.
Despite of all these events, an Order of 25th, February, 1976, declares Curros Enríquez´s House as “listed building of local interest” what helps to guarantee its interest as a public building.
The revitalization of the Foundation created the beginning of a long and complex process of negotiation with the owners of the part inherited by Sofía Curros and with the local, provincial and autonomous institutions that managed to take shape on 22nd, November, 1996, when the heiress of this property, Ana María González Calviño, regularized the sale of her part in favour of the City Hall of Celanova held at this moment by Antonio Mouriño Villar, with Jesús Pérez Varela as the Minister of Culture.
Drawn up the restoration project and counting with the contribution of 60 million pesetas on the part of the Ministry of Culture, 24 millions of the county council and 10.5 millions of the City Hall of Celanova in order to reach the 95.5 millions that this investment meant, in December, 1999, the works of restoration started.
On the occasion of the closing of the “ I International Congress about Curros Enríquez and His Time”, on 15th, September, 2001, coinciding with the 150 anniversary of Curros, the first public act in the house after its restoration took place.
The poet Luis González Tosar, together with the band “Grupo de Música Tradicional Del Igaem”, performed a poetry reading with the own writings of Curros Enríquez, Celso Emilio Ferreiro and Luis González Tosar recited it. From this moment the vegetable garden of the house will be named the “Horta da Palabra” ( “kitchen garden of the word “).
From that moment the house was opened from time to time accommodating temporal exhibitions and other activities.
However its definite opening did not take place until 18th, February, 2006 coinciding with the inauguration of the exhibition “31 artists around X. L. Méndez Ferrín “.
Manuel Curros Enríquez´s house is a building with the typical architectural characteristics of a Galician construction of the 19th century.
The house was built in 1850. It is joined by an inner yard, typical of the Galician rural construction, to a more rural dweling of which has preserved a beautiful “lareira” ( a kitchen typical from Galicia ) in its old kitchen.
The building has a regular prism-shape and three floors with side symmetrical large windows in the ground floor. In its centre you find the entrance gate and some balconies without sill facing outside in the other floors.
At the rear there is an attached vegetable garden with a porch that communicates the first floor and the vegetable garden and it is perfectly prepared to perform outside activities.
In relation to the name of “The poets´ Home”, it is explained because the aims of the Foundation Curros Enríquez are not only focused on Manuel Curros Enríquez´s life and work but also on the life and work of other writers related to Celanova such as Castor Elices, Celso Emilio Ferreiro and even Xosé Luis Méndez Ferrín who is an active member of the Foundation, as well as a new generation of poets, writers and journalists that were also born in Celanova and who guarantee the continuity of a literary tradition that identifies Celanova as perhaps, the main literary town in Galicia.
The fixed exhibition that can be contemplated in the house has been displayed on the ground floor of both buildings and it has got four differentiated spaces. It is mainly focused on the figure of Curros Enríquez with a superficial approach to Celso Emilio Ferreiro´s life and work.
Along seven retroiluminated panels and provided with graphic and written documentation and the reproduction of some manuscripts of the poet, the exhibition offers the following information:
A. GROUND FLOOR
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1. The House: the information is focused on its location and on a superficial information about the long process that it has lived until it turned into historical museum.
2. Historical Context: it is shown in two adjacent panels. The first one describes the socioeconomic context of that part of Galicia where Curros was born and where he forged his social thought. The second panel shows an approachement to the social political context of the Regionalist Galicia and of the Spain which Curros knows in Madrid where he takes part as a journalist in an active way.
3. Curros´s life and work: in the panel already placed in one of the rooms of the inner yard, it is described in a graphical, chronological and documentary way the poet´s main biography from a familiar point of view as well as from the different professional and poetical fields where he moved.
4. Curros and the music: in the external walls of the yard, a new panel is shown which describes the relation that Curros´s poetical work had to do with music. Some of his better known poems were accompanied by music and are present in the popular memory of Galician people.
5. Curross and the Real Academia: a short panel describes the role that Curros Enríquez played from La Habana to set in motion the “Asociación Iniciadora y Protectora de la Academia Gallega” including the reproduction of a written manuscript where he states his commitment in order to “create it as soon as possible”.
6. Homages to Curros: the death of Curros Enríquez and his burial in A Coruña caused a popular spate of mourning signs and admiration towards the poet. The images of the burial and of the inauguration of the monuments in A Coruña and Celanova state it.
7. Celso Emilio Ferreiro: a space annexe to the house, also with access from the inner yard of the building is the scene for the installation of several panels where it shows a biographical approximation of the poet Celso Emilio Ferreiro.
B. FIRST FLOOR_
The first floor of the house, to which you can enter through a beautiful staircase that is preserved from the original building, has got six operative dependencies which are described as follows:
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1. Sitting-room: it remains empty because the aim of the Foundation is to recreate in this room a space that transports the visitor to the atmosphere that it could have got in the time when Curros Enríquez lived in the building.Whereas the content of this room is not determined, the dependency will be destined to temporary exhibitions.
2. Room 1: several original documents of Curros Enríquez, such as letters related to the process of the Asociación Iniciadora and of the Academia Gallega, etc., as well as some of the first editions of his books can be contemplated in both display cabinets.
3. Room 2: some books and other objects related to Celso Emilio Ferreiro remain in a display cabinet like the others.
4. Room 3: it is destined to temporary exhibitions.
5. Room of the “lareira”: it is destined to the celebration of the meetings of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, as well as to the development of cultural acts, presentation of books, readings…
6. Offices: the administrative offices are placed opposite the staircase of the yard and they have direct access to the corridor.
C. SECOND FLOOR
The second floor has got five dependencies which are described as follows:
1. Library: a small library provided with computer material and connexion to the web offers service to students and researchers who wish to deeper into the different aspects of the life and work of the writers of Celanova.
2. Room 1: a room destined to temporary exhibitions about the rest of the authors of Celanova.
3. Room 2: a room destined to the temporary exhibitions about the rest of the authors of Celanova.
4. Room 3: a room destined to the temporary exhibitions about the rest of the authors of Celanova.
5. Gallery: a reading room.
D. AUDIOVISUAL INFORMATION
As a complement to these informative panels, several documentaries and audiovisual presentations are projected in different spaces of the ground and the first floor. They are about:
1. Historical contextualization of the house of Curros Enríquez´s family.
2. Curros Enríquez´s work.
3. Curros Enríquez, the poet of the people.4. Calso Emilio Ferreiro shows Celanova.
