Cal Cisteller, in Berga: 100 years of artisan baskets and totes

BergaIn the centre of Berga, next to the famous square where the Patum is celebrated every year, one of the oldest and most beloved shops in the municipality still exists: Cal Cisteller. As the name suggests, this establishment, founded in 1925, offers a wide variety of artisan basketry products, from chairs and stools to baskets of all kinds, trunks and a host of decorative objects. Dozens of items displayed on all the shelves and corners of the store, made by hand, without plastics or synthetic materials, only with frameworks of canes, wicker, palm heart or other plant fibers, which give off a very characteristic smell reminiscent of the houses of yesteryear. Currently, the store is run by the couple formed by Lluís Plans and Marisa Coll, the third generation at the head of a business that in 2025 will reach the round figure of one hundred years.

Plans and Coll are the owners of the establishment, they maintain day-to-day contact with customers and are responsible for providing the store with the best items. But neither of them practices the trade of basket weaver or makes the products that come home, but, after many years of experience, they contact and buy the items from the most skilled artisans in the area. "It is always a local product, handcrafted, made only with natural fibers, we do not sell anything from far away or of poor quality," explains Coll.

Each piece is unique

The Catalan esparto straws and espadrilles or the series of snail baskets for searching for snails, each one different from the rest, with a twisted handle or an imperfect circumference, an unmistakable sign of artisanal manufacture, are some of the star products. Also, obviously, the baskets and baskets, as well as the log holders for the fireplace, the giant chests for storing toys or clothes and decorative figures such as Catalan donkeys.

Marisa Coll advocates the option of decorating the house with basketry objects, whether useful or decorative. "We live very stressed, in a world where everything is made of plastic or metal, so a home with natural fibre objects makes you breathe differently, opens your lungs, gives you peace and brings you closer to nature," she argues. And he continues: "These are products that have been made with time, unique and individual, and that transform over time, unlike automatic production lines, where all the objects come out with the same clichés, without personality, and everyone has the same ones."

Cal Cisteller was founded in 1925, when Josep Comellas, grandfather of Lluís Plans, married Maria Guitart, a very enterprising woman, and together they opened the business on the ground floor of the family home. At that time, everything was sold: toys, perfumes, camping utensils, bags and suitcases, costume jewellery, cosmetics and, upstairs, there was a small basketry section. Grandfather Comellas learned the basket-making trade and, while his wife worked, he made baskets and other ropes with some workers. It was from then on that the neighbours of Berga began to know this local business as Cal Cisteller.

Postwar and typhus

After her grandparents, it passed into the hands of Bienvenida Comellas, the couple's only daughter, who during the post-war period, with the typhus epidemic that infected Berga, was orphaned by her mother at just 12 years old. As she lived in the same building as the shop, from a young age she ran among the customers and helped her father until, as soon as she was old enough to work, she took charge, with great drive and a close relationship with the customers. Ca la Bien, many locals called the shop. Over time, the basketry offering, which was very popular, gained ground, although other items were still sold, especially toys during the Christmas season.

Then Lluís Plans arrived, who, like his mother and his grandfather, also hung around the shop a lot as a child, felt comfortable there and started working there at the age of 16. Until, about thirty years ago, when Plans married Marisa Coll, the couple took over the reins to dedicate the entire shop exclusively to basketry, officially recovering the popular name of Cal Cisteller's origins.

Unresolved succession

However, Plans and Coll, who are approaching sixty, are convinced that they will be the last generation of the family and that they will put an end to the Cal Cisteller story. One of the sons, when non-essential services had to close down due to Covid, gave a big push to the family business by creating the company Vimetea, which sold household products online. The website worked very well and made record sales, but, over time, the son took on other professional projects and gave the brand in a friendly manner to some friends, disassociating it from Cal Cisteller. "The family line ends here, because the children have their jobs and it is quite understandable, because a store needs a person behind it who has a vocation: if not, it does not work," concludes Marisa Coll.