The man who made his fortune in the Americas and built the Palau de les Heures and the current headquarters of the College of Journalists

In 1938, at the height of the Spanish Civil War, Alfredo Kindelán, the Francoist air force chief, received a strange letter while stationed in Salamanca. In it, a wealthy Catalan man begged him to drop bombs on his own house in Barcelona, ​​providing all the necessary information to ensure the attack, including the exact location and several photographs of the property. The story is so bizarre that it requires some digging to unravel the mystery. The sender was Josep Gallart Folch, the son of a wealthy man who had made his fortune in Puerto Rico. The mansion in question was the Palau de les Heures, which still stands today amidst a wooded area in Vall d'Hebron and is managed by the University of Barcelona. Gallart's self-destructive impulse stemmed from the confiscation of the palace by Republican authorities during the war and also from the fact that it served as a temporary residence for President Companys. Luckily, no bomb ever fell on the property and we can still enjoy it today.

After his father's death, and as a teenager, Josep Gallart Forgas emigrated from his native Empordà to Puerto Rico in 1851, where his uncle, Joan Forgas Bayó, had achieved a certain social standing as a merchant. Upon their arrival on the island, his uncle and other relatives who had settled there took a very ambitious step in business, investing in a sugarcane refining operation, which they called... millsNot far from all this, in Cuba, sugar production was mostly in the hands of Catalans. In the following years, Gallart would become a key figure in the family factory and two others that would be established over time, making them the main sugar-producing center on the island, always centered around the city of Ponce. One of Gallart's main tasks was modernizing the operations with the addition of new machinery. Needless to say, this economic position allowed him to become part of the local elite, with whom he shared time and hobbies, while also financing various cultural initiatives, such as the construction of Ponce's main theater, known as La Perla. With the business consolidated, Gallart entered politics, a very common decision among those who had made their fortunes in the Americas. In this regard, he was a prominent member of the Unconditionally Spanish Party, a group that, as one might easily imagine, opposed any movement to separate Puerto Rico from the Spanish state. Coinciding with his uncle's death in 1885, Gallart returned to Catalonia and also became involved in politics, serving as a senator from March 1893 until the legislature that began in 1896, always representing the then-province of Puerto Rico in the Spanish Senate.

The family's business interests didn't end with sugar, as they also owned a major shipping company, founded by Joan Morera Bargalló. This businessman had been the manager of a nautical company and decided to establish his own firm in 1881, the Compañía Barcelonesa de Vapores Trasatlánticos (Barcelona Transatlantic Steamship Company), with the aim of establishing routes to the Antilles. He managed to attract significant investors, such as Román Macaya Gibert and Pere Garriga Nogués. Following the crisis of 1883, the company's shareholding was restructured, which resulted in Gallart's uncle becoming the main shareholder. Just two years later, his uncle died, and our protagonist inherited a controlling stake in the company, which would remain in operation until 1911. In the final years of his life, he commissioned the architect August Font Carreras to build a house at Rambla de Catalunya 34, and, above all, Gallart only enjoyed it for two years. This same architect would also design the Las Arenas bullring, now a shopping center. Incidentally, it's worth noting that the former number 34 is now number 10, and this is important to avoid confusing this building—where the College of Journalists is located—with the Casa Argelich, headquarters of the textile company Cedimatexsa (Central Distribuidora de Manufacturas SA) and the setting two decades ago for the film Balagueró and Paco Plaza.