Everything passes. Even the eternal works of La Rambla will end one day. Meanwhile, between fences, detours, and noise, there is a building that remains motionless on the corner of Rambla 111 with Pintor Fortuny 4-6. It is an establishment that has changed names, owners, and eras, but not its imposing presence. It is Le Méridien Barcelona, protagonist of the 15th chapter of Hotels with History, the series we publish every two weeks in The New Barcelona Post.
In this double address, everything has been transformation. Names, owners, fashions, and even the celebrities who arrived in luxury cars at its door have changed. However, something remains. An almost imperceptible trace, connecting very different moments in the city's history: the dense smoke of Filipino cigars, the black smoke of a fire, and that other smoke that stories leave behind when they come to live in a place.
The origin is tragic. On Christmas Eve 1932, a short circuit in the nativity scene of the El Siglo Department Store unleashed a devastating fire. A toy electric train was left on in a display window, the curtains caught fire, and, in a few hours, the fire devoured seven floors illuminated by more than six thousand lamps. That night was marked (without exaggeration) in the history of 20th-century Barcelona, as much more than a building burned.
El Siglo was one of the great symbols of La Rambla. With a thousand employees and a pioneering model that combined accessible luxury with mail-order sales, it had turned commerce into a spectacle not yet as frequent as today. Its disappearance left a physical, but also emotional, void on the Rambla dels Estudis. For years, that plot was an absence difficult to ignore, with the added burden of a neighborhood bombed during the civil war and the disastrous post-war period.
However, in Barcelona, voids, especially in such a central location, rarely remain. Over time, the definitive opening of Pintor Fortuny street to La Rambla reordered the surroundings and gave meaning back to that space. The city was weaving itself back together, as so many times, preparing for the next story: the second half of the last century.
In May 1957, that void came back to life with the opening of a hotel. The Compañía General de Tabacos de Filipinas, whose monumental headquarters stood directly opposite, decided to build the Gran Hotel Manila there. It was a coherent gamble with its history: a company that had connected Barcelona with Asia through Transatlántica ships and tobacco trade now made the leap into hospitality in one of the city's most charismatic spots.
The architectural project was entrusted to Agustí Borrell i Sensat, with sober and elegant lines. The result was a neoclassical building with 207 rooms that would soon become a reference. And with a detail that still distinguishes it today: it remains the tallest on La Rambla.
Borrell i Sensat had already left his mark on another important point in Barcelona: the former headquarters of the Banco Rural Mediterráneo at the confluence of Gran Vía and Passeig de Gràcia. A building that has also lived several lives: from a financial center to a commercial space, from the mythical Terraza Martini on its top floor to a large contemporary fashion store: from the Virgin Megastore inaugurated by Richard Branson himself to the current large Zara that well summarizes the city's transformation stages.
A truly Grand Hotel
The Manila quickly found its place. During the sixties and seventies, it was a regular refuge for artists from the nearby Liceu (sopranos, tenors, musicians) and figures from cinema, song, business, and culture who found in this place a perfect combination of discretion and centrality.On its ground floor, in addition to a commercial gallery, it had one of its most unique spaces: the Camarote Granados, a name that evoked the last journey of the composer Enric Granados, who died in 1916 when the ship he was traveling on was torpedoed in the English Channel by a German submarine. That symbolic cabin gave meaning to a small and intimate space for culture.
Exhibitions, gatherings, and nights that remained in the memory of music lovers were held there. It was not uncommon to hear Victoria de los Ángeles accompanied by great pianists singing for a small group of privileged individuals. More than a stage, it was a kind of speakeasy or small classical music club.
Over time, changes arrived. Under different managements, the hotel adapted to new demands until a comprehensive renovation elevated it to five stars under the name of Ramada Renaissance. It was the beginning of its modern era, without completely breaking with what it had been. One of its most famous guests at that time was Michael Jackson, who occupied the same suite as Luciano Pavarotti.
The definitive turn came in the nineties, when the establishment joined the Le Méridien brand, then integrated into Starwood and today into the giant Marriott. Thus, the current Le Méridien Barcelona was born, a transition that managed to respect its essence while adapting to contemporary luxury standards.
Today it is one of Barcelona's 23 five-star Grand Luxury hotels, and one of the nine in Ciutat Vella with this category. It maintains 191 rooms and suites, many with direct views of La Rambla, and continues to be a reference point for understanding the city from its center.
Director and writer
In this memory there is an important name: the writer Jordi Siracusa, pseudonym of Jordi Martínez BrotonsThe former director of the hotel for years was also its most lucid narrator. He lived the golden age of the Manila and turned those experiences into stories where the line between reality and fiction is blurred. Like every great "category" hotel director, he took many secrets with him in his memory when he passed away last year... or perhaps he told them.His books are full of scenes that seem invented... until one understands that, in a hotel like this, reality usually always goes one step ahead. His disappearance left an inevitable void, but also a gaze that remains present in every corner of the building.
Today, the Le Méridien Barcelona continues at that crossroads between La Rambla and Pintor Fortuny, with several lives behind it and the same intact vocation of a grand hotel facing another that was its germ: the hotel 1898, which may be a future chapter of this series. An establishment with history that was the headquarters of Tabacos de Filipinas. The smoke that is the thread of this story.