Llotja Superior School of Art and Design is a public school that falls under the auspices of the Education Department of the Generalitat of Catalunya. Heir to the Escuela Gratuita de Diseño, created on January 23 of 1715 by the Barcelona Board of Commerce, Llotja is the oldest school of design in Spain. The first classrooms were established in the top floors of the building Llotja de Mar, and therein came its popular name of “Llotja”, which is now official. The originating objective was to form draftsmen which, via training in the correct taste of the new Neo-classical style, would be able to design objects and ornamental motifs that would then be manufactured in the new factories, thus promoting production and commerce. Very soon, however, it was transformed into the Escola de Nobles Arts (1800) and its principal activity became the training of painters and sculptors, as well as of architects, becoming the first school in Catalunya to provide Architecture studies (1817).

At the beginning of the XX century the School went on to become, first the Escola Superior d’Arts i Indústries i Belles Arts (1900), and afterwards, having separated out the industries, the Escola d’Arts i Oficis artístics i Belles Arts (1910). It wasn’t until 1914 that the School of Fine Arts would separate into an independent school. Consequently, almost all of the better known Catalan artists from this long period were trained at Llotja.

Following the Renaissance and Neo-classical model, training of the designer was based almost exclusively on Drawing, while practical training was acquired outside of the school. In 1910 the studios were introduced, thus creating the artistic specialties that are still in place today. Design remained part of the curriculum but it was not until the publication of the LOGSE, which established the Formative Cycles of Art and Design and the Superior Studies of Design (2002), equivalent to a university diploma, that the name was recovered.

The result is a school of long tradition which offers a wide range of specialties and educational levels, of subject matter and theoretical, historical, technological, legal, experimental, project-based and practical modules. This broad base makes the Llotja Superior School of Art and Design an almost unic example of the interrelationship between different fields of knowledge and artistic creation.