Who are the great Catalan families of Passeig de Gràcia?

BarcelonaPasseig de Gràcia has seen it all. What began as a cart path to link unwalled Barcelona and Vila de Gràcia at the beginning of the 19th century, has ended up being, according to the latest figures from ASCANA for 2023, the most expensive commercial axis in Catalonia with a rental price per square metre of €3,460, a figure only surpassed by 0,000 euros. But beyond the ranking of prices paid by companies that see Passeig de Gràcia as a business centre, this transformation has also had a full impact on the modification of the urban landscape of Barcelona.

Since the beginning of the creation of the street – conceived in 1821 and promoted three years later – it had been a fundamentally residential street far from the commercial centre, which was located next to the new Via Laietana, as explained by the historian and museologist Daniel Venteo. The growth of Barcelona outside the city walls and the installation of different services and transport – such as the Camps Elisis amusement park and the passage of the tram – encouraged the progressive transfer of the business centre outside of what had been the old Barcelona, ​​​​to locate it on Passeig de Gràcia. After the end of the war, this street became a commercial axis for bourgeois family businesses. Although in the 1950s the street lost social popularity with the installation of its banks, years later Passeig de Gràcia once again became a nerve centre of social life with the continuity of the old family businesses and the arrival of new local companies, Venteo explains.

Two centuries after the creation of Passeig de Gràcia, and with a paradigm shift in commercial tradition with the arrival of large multinationals, the ARA wanted to talk to some of the generationally-continuous companies that have adapted to the fierce competition that now exists on one of Barcelona's most famous streets.

The couple Josep Batlló and Amàlia Godó – daughter of Bartomeu Godó i Pié, politician of the Liberal Party, entrepreneur and co-founder of The Vanguard– acquired the building at number 43 Passeig de Gràcia with the intention of competing with the building that Josep Puig i Cadafalch had just inaugurated at number 41, the so-called Casa Amatller. Although the initial idea was to demolish the building constructed by the architect Emili Sala i Cortés –designer of the Casa Elizalde and the Casa Emilia Carlos– Gaudí convinced them not to turn into rubble what was the work of one of his teachers, and so the famous Casa Batlló was saved.

The couple decided to make the costs of the works profitable by renting out some of the flats in the building, and one of the companies that set up its office in the house next to Carrer Aragó was the Sociedad Iberia de Seguros. But the panorama of splendour took a 180º turn when Josep Batlló and Amàlia Godó died. The house passed into the hands of two of his daughters, Mercè and Carme Batlló, who in 1954 decided to sell the building to one of the companies that rented an office, the Sociedad Iberia de Seguros, a company in which Enric Bernat –owner of the Chupa Chups patent– had a minority stake at the time.

In 1989, with Bernat now the owner of the Sociedad Iberia de Seguros, a sales process began that would take longer than expected. The lack of buyers, the high price of the building and the crisis in the real estate sector at that time made it difficult to find a buyer. Finally, in a financial manoeuvre in 1993, it ended up being the Bernat family themselves who, for a cost much lower than the sale price of the house, bought the entire building for 3,000 million pesetas (equivalent to around 42 million euros today).

After the Bernat family acquired one of the jewels in the crown of the Golden Square, they decided to restore it and in 1995 they began to rent the house for events. "My parents had the first wedding at Casa Batlló," Maria Bernat explains in conversation with the ARA about the new use that the emblematic building began to have, just in the same year that she was born. From 2002 and coinciding with the International Year of Gaudí, Casa Batlló began to host the first cultural visits. Today it has become a reference museum and in 2023 – the last year for which data is available – it was visited by 4,100 people a day, although Bernat assures that in the last year "it has continued to grow substantially."

The family's "freedom" to propose new projects

An example of the new museum approach are the immersive tours offered inside the museum and the mappings which have been projected onto the façade since 2022, projects that Bernat has led as artistic director of Casa Batlló. This is one of the renovations that have been carried out under the leadership of Bernat's cousin, Gary Gautier Bernat, who has been key in "introducing technology and new media to improve the visitor experience," explains Bernat about her cousin's role. In fact, Bernat is clear when it comes to pointing out the main reason that has made it possible to bring these innovative proposals forward: "I have been lucky that my father and my uncles have given me the same freedom that they also received from my grandfather."

But Bernat has not always been so clear about the fact of being part of the legacy of this emblem. For a long time she did not see herself "inside Casa Batlló" and that is why she began to make her own way working in Ricard Bofill's architectural firm. It was in New York, studying a degree in design management at the Pratt Institute, that she saw "an opportunity to scale up the cultural proposal" that the second generation and Gary Gautier Bernat had been carrying out until then. "During the pandemic, I returned to Barcelona and spoke to my aunt [Marta Bernat] about all the things that had occurred to me during my degree classes," Bernat explains about the interest she showed in improving different aspects of the business and which were key to her joining Casa Batlló.

After years of Passeig de Gràcia adopting a more grey, sober and uncrowded aesthetic as it was an avenue dedicated to banking, the businessman Enrique Vives decided to break this dynamic and create one of the first shopping centres in Barcelona in 1978. The space would end up being called Bulevard Rosa 2 and became a reference centre for fashion and commercial dynamism on Passeig de Gràcia and Barcelona.

The siblings Sandra and Nacho Vives, children of the man who was also the founder of El Triangle, tried to rejuvenate the range of shops, but the context of the great luxury artery had changed completely: at the beginning of the 2000s, the greats of the luxury sector arrived on Passeig de Gràcia. retail international and the competition ended up being devouring. What had been a pioneering bet on the retail ended up dying from the same damage that made them successful. On July 31, 2018, the boulevard closed its doors and in the following years they dedicated themselves to looking for alternatives that would reactivate an immense space with a particular architectural layout.

From commercial space to cultural bet

After trying to sell the large commercial space to other companies, they realised that the alternative was within the same building. Quique Vives, 24 years old and with experience from working in strategic consultancy, came up with a new proposal taking into account the commercial context of the city. "I felt a bit sorry, but we had to change our approach. We realised that the cultural proposals around were somewhat outdated and we decided to open a museum about Catalonia, because we believe that this theme fits perfectly with Passeig de Gràcia," Vives explains about the so-called White Rabbit.

Forty-five years after Enirque Vives opened the Bulevar Rosa, his grandson took charge of the cultural proposal as director of the new museum. Currently, the White Rabbit occupies 1,200 square metres of the 5,000 that the shopping centre once had. Vives points out that the project has been carried out with "private capital and without public subsidies". Despite the magnitude of the proposal, Vives points out that at the moment he runs "a small, family-run business." Even so, this size also gives them more room to maneuver in the face of the large multinationals with which they share the street: "We are from here, we know how this street works and being smaller we are able to make decisions more quickly."

Enrique Vives' grandson says that not only has the commercial offer changed on Passeig de Gràcia, but also its pedestrians. Although he misses "local people" on this street, he points out that there is a niche of clients who are international or who have just settled in Barcelona and for this public the museum serves the function of contextualizing the environment, traditions and artists of the country. Even so, Vives also wants to attract local pedestrians: "I understand the resistance of Barcelona residents to visit a place that tells them about traditions that they may already know. "For this sector of people we have launched the initiative of The Nights of the White Rabbit, with live concerts and stand-ups".

In 1968, Jordi Clos, businessman and president of the Clos Archaeological Foundation – an entity that also owns the Egyptian Museum of Barcelona – decided to diversify his assets and enter the real estate world with the founding of the company Derby Hotels Collection. With the desire to acquire buildings of high historical value, the lover of Egyptology expanded his assets by acquiring buildings in European capitals and converting them into hotels. Forty years after the founding of Derby Hotels Collection, Joaquim Clos joined his father's company as general manager.

With different hotels in Barcelona, ​​​​as well as in Madrid, London or Paris, one of the first actions carried out by Joaquim Clos was the acquisition of the building that is now known as the Hotel Suits Avenue. "Acquiring a hotel on Passeig de Gràcia was a question of the company's identity," explains Clos in conversation with the ARA about the building that combines rental apartments and tourist apartments. Once the purchase was made, they wanted to pay homage to La Pedrera, located diagonally across from the hotel, and convinced Japanese architect Toyoo Ito – winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2013 – to renovate the façade of the future hotel, with the curves and metal openings that create a dialogue between the 'decorative' and modern modernism.

For Joaquim Clos, his father's passion for Egyptology has served to specialise his hotels in luxury stays. This feature attracts clients with a high purchasing power and longer stays than the average in Barcelona: "We have a lot of European, Korean and Chinese clients, also a lot of clients who come to have surgery in Barcelona; we've seen them in all colours."

The link with Passeig de Gràcia

Clos has witnessed the change that this commercial artery has experienced in recent decades. "In 2009, when we opened the hotel, international brands had not yet shown interest in hotels on Passeig de Gràcia. In fact, until a few years ago Catalan agents owned a large part of the city's hotel network, but this has changed in Barcelona and in the major capitals of the world," he explains.

This internationalisation of the retail has achieved that "the shopping district "The fact that the current Paseo de Gràcia was on Diagonal is now concentrated on Passeig de Gràcia" has also brought about externalities that have changed the commercial landscape. "I already like the current Passeig de Gràcia, but if I could choose, I would like to see more quality local commerce. The thing is that I am a businessman and I know how hard it is to open a shop on Passeig de Gràcia; I know that this is very difficult," he says. What he misses most is the gastronomic field, which "with all due respect, is also what happened to Las Ramblas," he says. "Someone should dare to open a restaurant that could end up with a Michelin star and with a car park. "Even though they are my competition, I love that there are the Majestic and the Mandarin, because they are characteristic of Barcelona. If it were possible, I would love for there to be three Vinçons as well," he says.

Like his grandfather, Luis Sans had to take over the management of the Santa Eulàlia store when he was 22 years old. It is located between Provença and Rosselló streets and has been an icon of Barcelona fashion since 1843. Although the firm was initially located in different establishments near the Boqueria, it was not until 1941 that the first Santa Eulàlia store was opened at number 60 Passeig de Gràcia and three years later.

Santa Eulalia has witnessed the urban changes of the promenade and the tastes of customers in each era. While outside the car was increasingly present due to the push that Mayor Porcioles gave to the private vehicle, Santa Eulàlia also suffered the change of era with the arrival of prefabricated clothes with a cut, the so-called ready-to-wear, and the end of made-to-measure clothing. In the early nineties they stopped selling fabrics; years before, their own clothing production had ended and had been replaced by brands from major international designers.

This revolution in the world of sewing also impacted the commercial landscape of Passeig de Gràcia, which did not adapt to the change of model and the competition from the big names in the industry. retail. While years ago Santa Eulàlia competed with shops such as Farreras, Casa Puig or Casa Bastida, now it competes with large international chains of all kinds, says Sans in conversation with ARA.

"All of us who had a shop on Passeig de Gràcia had our general management here, now we compete with very different business structures, decisions are made in places on the other side of the world," explains Sans about the business change in the shops that today occupy this commercial axis. Sans experiences this situation as the owner of Santa Eulàlia, but also as president of the Passeig de Gràcia Association: "Now, when we have to talk about renovations of the promenade with company executives, there is a totally different dialogue. In the end, the store manager is an employee; there is no longer the community bond that there was before."

The owner of Santa Eulàlia is clear when it comes to explaining the difficulties of opening and maintaining a business on one of the most illustrious streets in Barcelona. "There is no room for independent and unconsolidated companies. If there is one case, it is because of the family inheritance that may have been received," says Sans, who recalls the price per square meter of rent and the competition from multinationals. "I don't know what the right balance is, but the truth is that there is variety. Passeig de Gràcia has two things that other streets in the world don't have: diversity of businesses and a human distribution, the right size between length and width," he says.