El Portal de l'Àngel, the reconstruction of a thousand years of history

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l Portal de l'Àngel, according to pre-pandemic metrics, is the commercial artery with the most expensive rents in Spain and the fourteenth worldwide, with a rent of more than 3,400 euros per square meter per year. Large clothing chains dominate the street, but hundreds of years ago this was a space where medieval tournaments and jousts of knights were held and where several convents and monasteries were built.

To know the history of this central quadrant formed by Portal de l'Àngel, Montsió, Amargós and Comtal streets, one must go back to the year 1000, when Barcelona was a small city with a Roman and Visigothic past with only 1,500 inhabitants. At that time, Barcelonans lived in only 12 hectares, within the perimeter of the Roman wall. Documentation has been found certifying that in the 12th century, specifically, in 1146, the Order of the Holy Sepulchrein Barcelona received an important donation of land outside the wall, in the area currently occupied by Canuda, La Rambla, Plaça Catalunya and Portal de l'Àngel streets. A few years later, some monks settled on these plots where there were only fields, and the area began to be known as thevilla Sancti Sepulcri, as explained this weekthe historian Pere A. Fàbregasin a virtual conference organized by the Association of the Museum of Science and Technology and Industrial Archaeology of Catalonia. According to Fàbregas, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre received new donations of land where Comtal and Montsió streets are now located, and by 1177 it already had under construction theChurch of Santa Anna. In the 13th century, the current Portal de l'Àngel experienced a new phase of expansion thanks to the arrival of a new religious order,the Friars of the Sack, and to the decision to demolish the old Roman wall to build a new one.The medieval square of Santa Anna, the genesis of the current Portal de l'ÀngelThe Friars of the Sack appeared in Barcelona from French Provence and, after acquiring land in 1262 from the bishopric and noble families in what was then Plaza de Santa Anna, cthey began to build their church and convent where the H&M store is currently located in Portal de l'Àngel, on the corner with Montsió, in the building of the oldCatalana de Gas. But let's go back again. The Friars of the Sack were an ephemeral order, as they were integrated into another community, that of the Augustinian canons, by decision of the Council of Lyon (1274). In Barcelona, ​​however, there is still a memory of them: the streetEspolsasacs, also located in this area. We now make a leap in time. We advance to the 15th century, when Queen Maria of Castile, making arrangements with Pope Martin V, reorganized the convents in Barcelona. Thus, the convent in Plaza de Santa Anna/Montsió became vacant because its occupants went to live in the neighboring convent on Santa Anna street. The Pope awarded the facilities to theDominican nuns, who took possession of the new convent in 1423. At that time, in the current Portal de l'Àngel, not only was the convent located there, but important noble families of the city had also built their palaces in the area, such as the Albi, Cruïlles, Perelada, Soterra, the Marquises of Vilana, Barbarà, Santa Pau, and the Cardona, the most important feudal house in the country, according to historian Fàbregas. He reminds us that in the mid-15th centurythe wide space between Plaza Santa Anna and Comtal, Arcs, and Cucurulla streets was used to hold medieval jousts and tournamentsthat were accompanied by proclamations, parades, drumming, and trumpet fanfares. With the arrival of the Dominicans, the convent that had once been founded by the Friars of the Sack came to be calledSanta María de Montsióand began an era of great prosperity. Between bombings and exclaustrationsMore meager were the 17th-19th centuries, a long period marked by warsbetween the armies of France and Spain. The convent, increasingly in the center of the city, was bombed and the nuns exclaustrated several times.The Reapers' War, the Corpus of Blood, the Black Death, the Nine Years' War and the bombardments of the Duke of Vendôme or the War of Succession are some of the misfortunes experienced by the Dominican community. Philip of Bourbon's siege in 1714 directly affected the nuns of Montsió, as a bomb fell on the church. With the Decree of Nueva Planta, the convent of Montsió was reborn and recovered its influence in Barcelona. According to Fàbregas, Joan Alòs, one of the sixteen administrators that theDuke of Berwickin Barcelona, he had two nun daughters in the convent, one of them was the prioress. In the 19th century, however, the Dominican nuns had a hard time again, because the convent was confiscated by Napoleon's troops, a fact that would be repeated again during the Liberal Triennium. Santa María de Montsiówas saved from the burning of convents(in the episode known as theBullanguesfrom Barcelona), but the nuns had to leave and the building became a military barracks.The origin of the LiceuThe national militia that inhabited the convent, to obtain economic resources, decidedto create a company of singing enthusiastsand they launched a theater that held its first performance in 1837.Thus was born the Liceo Filo-dramático de Montesión, the origin of the current Gran Teatre del Liceu. Under the reign of Isabel II, the old convent became a public and free school of singing, solfège, violin, dance, fencing, and declamation and had its own orchestra. The first opera performed wasNorma(1838), which was followed by different operas by Rossini, Bellini, Mercadante, and Donizetti. The Liceu de Montsió, however, was bombed again in 1842, when Barcelona rose up against the regent Espartero, the one who said the mythical phrase that "Barcelona must be bombed at least once every fifty years". According to Fàbregas,1,014 projectiles fell on the city, some about theLiceo Filo-Dramático de MontesiónOnce Espartero had already expatriated, Isabel II managed to get the Government to cede the Trinitarian convent on La Rambla to El Liceu, where the definitive theater was built.The last function in Montsió was on September 8, 1845. The new theater of La Rambla (the first illuminated with gas) premiered on April 17, 1847 withAnna Bolenaof Donizetti.The return of the nunsAnd what happened to the Dominican nuns? They did not forget to recover their old convent. Once El Liceu had moved to La Rambla, they managed to get the queen to return Montsió to them, ten years later. But their joy was short-lived: the convent was confiscated again in 1869 when Isabel II had to go into exile. With the Restoration, the Dominicans were able to recover the convent (1875), but it was already threatening ruin and they had to look for an alternative. It was at that moment in history when the Martí Puig family, dedicated to textiles, bought the Montsió properties from the nunsand they also gave them in exchange a plot of land in the current Rambla Catalunya with Rosselló, where they built a new convent, the current Parish of San Ramón de Penyafort (the Dominicans moved in 1947 from Rambla Catalunya to Esplugues, where they still are today, with much more tranquility than their predecessors). We return again to Montsió. Brothers Pedro and Francisco Martí Puig built a house on the land that had been occupied by the convent of Santa María, althoughthe urban transformation of all the square meters acquired from the nuns did not finalize until the year 1920. It should be noted that they took possession of the lot in 1888, the year of theUniversal Expositionand also from the enlargement of the entire area of Plaza Santa Anna, since its width was extended to Plaça Catalunya, creating Avenida Portal de l'Àngel, which increased the real estate value of the area in the midst of the rise of modernism.Modernism and Els Quatre GatsThe elder brother, Pedro Martí Puig, had a house built by the architect Alexandre Perich at the current number 24 of Portal de l'Àngel. The redevelopment of the old convent also allowed for the construction of the properties at numbers 18, 20, and 22 and to open the current Pasaje del Patriarca from behind.The Martís sold a very important part of the land in 1892 to the Catalan Society for Gas Lighting, a company that would later become Catalana de Gas y Electricidad, now Naturgy. With the resources obtained, the other brother, Francisco Martí, commissionedJosep Puig i Cadafalchthat he build him a house at Montsió street, 3 bis. It was the first work of the young modernist architect, author of the Codorníu cellars, the Casaramona Factory (CaixaForum) or the Casa Amatller on Passeig de Gràcia. But this property at Montsió, 3bis is not only emblematic for Puig i Cadafalch, but because on its ground floor, in 1897opened the famous brewery Els Quatre Gats, where the city's bohemians gathered. Ramon Casas, Santiago Rusiñol, Isidre Nonell, Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, Pablo Picasso, and Lluís Millet were some who frequented it, as Pere A. Fàbrega recalls. The origins of the old Gas Natural headquartersLet's return now to Portal de l'Àngel to connect with an important chapter in Barcelona's business history. We have explained that the Martí family sold most of the convent's land to the Catalan Society for Gas Lighting, the first company to introduce this new lighting formula in Spain in 1842. This company had always been renting, in different locations in the city, until in a shareholders' meeting decided in 1891 the construction of its own emblematic corporate headquartersas an exercise of strength and power at a time when the arrival of electricity threatened their business. The land they bought had been occupied by the church, the chapter house, and the cloister of the old convent of Santa María de Montsió. The property had a 20-meter facade on Portal de l'Àngel (the current number 22) and extended to Pasaje del Patriarca. And what price did they pay? 600,014 pesetas, at a rate of "seventeen pesetas twenty-five cents per square palm," as can be read in a deed. The gas company commissioned the project to architect Josep Domènech Estapà, who built a building typical of his style, tending towards monumentality, with a majestic entrance and a staircase illuminated by a large skylight. It cost 225,431 pesetas.In this building, today occupied by H&M, the energy group had its headquarters for more than 100 years, from 1895 to 2006. During this time, the Societat Catalana per l'Enllumenat per Gas transformed, first, into Catalana de Gas y Electricidad (1912) and then into Gas Natural (1991), a company of which historian Fàbregas was a director. But, let's go back a bit. It is worth noting that during the roaring twenties, the building on Portal de l'Àngel was expanded with the adjacent property and, on the ground floor, aan Art Deco style storewhere exhibitions and cooking classes were held to showcase gas stoves, water heaters, and heating systems, which replaced coal-fired ones. It should be noted that with the arrival of electricity (the company competed with the powerful Barcelona Traction), gas had to devise new uses, and hence the interest in opening this store dedicated to household utensils.The first IBM in SpainWe now jump to the 60s, when the gas company's headquarters in Portal de l'Àngel premiered the first computer in Spain, an IBM 1401 with only 8KB. The architect of the company's growth and modernization wasPere Duran Farell, introducer of natural gas, since until then gas was produced in factories, like the one in Barceloneta, first with coal, and then with oil. In 1985, the so-called Gas Protocol was signed, which led to a stage of strong growth accelerated by the entry of two new shareholders, La Caixa and Repsol, and the absorption, by Catalana de Gas, of Gas Madrid (1991), with the new group being renamed Gas Natural SDG. According to Fàbregas, "those were difficult moments" in which it was questioned whether the registered office of the new company should be in Barcelona or Madrid. It finally remained in the historic building on Portal de l'Àngel. After the merger, the international expansion process began, with entry into Argentina (1992) and Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil (1997). The large dimension acquired by the Gas Natural group led to reflection on the need to build a more modern corporate headquarters and, incidentally, return to Barceloneta, where the company was born in 1842. Architects Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue won the competition and the new headquarters opened in 2006. To finance the work, Gas Natural sold the historic headquarters on Portal de l'Àngel in December 2001 through a pioneering internet auction. The properties were distributed among the chainBenetton(the store at number 20 for 24.6 million euros) and the real estate companyLar(28 million to build luxury apartments), although a part of the property was later resold for 34 million toMobinmob Real Estate. This company is the one that since 2006 has as a tenantH&M

Everyone has left their mark on Portal de l'Àngel. It is not so easy to find a piece of Barcelona whose history can be reconstructed with such precision.

"Everyone has left their mark on Portal de l'Àngel," concludes the historian. "From the Friars of the Sack to the Augustinian canons, the Dominicans, the National Militia, El Liceu, the Volunteers of Liberty, the disentailment, the Martí i Puig family, Catalana del Gas, and finally Benetton and H&M," he summarizes. "It is not so easy ---he concludes---, to find a piece of Barcelona whose history can be reconstructed with such precision and with these relevant, preserved, and existing architectural elements." From now on, when you go shopping in Portal de l'Àngel, you surely won't just see shoe stores and clothing shops, right? You will surely imagine the Barcelona of medieval convents, the bombed Barcelona, that of the Dominican nuns coming and going, and the origins of the successful history of the current Naturgy, one of the main companies born and promoted from Catalonia.