Soho Pool House: the social club that bets on Barcelona's art

We find ourselves in front of Soho Pool House, the former Bernat i Creus house, designed in 1906 by master builder Josep Masdeu. Today it is reborn, converted into the new venture of this international club in the upper area of the city, a space where members can telework, do networking, eat, train in the gym, and participate in activities ranging from visits to artist studios to talks with local creatives.

Soho House was born in 1995, when British entrepreneur Nick Jones opened the first club above his restaurant Café Bohème, in London's Soho, conceived as a meeting place for creative professionals. Thirty years later, this vocation remains intact and its commitment to art is decisive: in each new house it opens, the group opts for local art. In Stockholm, for example, all the works decorating the club are by Scandinavian artists. In Barcelona, the collection brings together nearly thirty artists born, resident, or trained in the city.

In Barcelona, the collection brings together nearly thirty artists born, resident, or trained in the city.

The mastermind behind the unique art selection is Kate Bryan, Soho House's artistic director since 2016. Bryan explains that the team always works with a network of local contacts in each city, made up of gallerists, artists, curators, and industry professionals. In 2018, she made the selection for Little Beach House Barcelona in Garraf, so she maintained contact with many of them, which allowed her to reactivate this network for this new project. Among the names who worked with her are cultural manager Mali Parkerson and Bernat Daviu, artist and co-founder, along with Joana Roda, of the gallery Bombon Projects.

The rehabilitation of the building is in itself an admirable exercise; all the modernist houses in the city should be restored this way, with frescoes and original elements recovered with great care. But what is surprising upon entering is that art here does not function as mere decoration but is an essential element of the experience and of the house. At the reception, members are greeted by a work by Juaki Pesudo (Barcelona, 1995). According to Bryan, placing Love Painting VI at this point of passage was a deliberate decision, as the work sets the tone as soon as one crosses the door and transforms with the changing light of the day, sustaining a dialogue with a building of such personality.

Touring the house is an experience that combines the careful interior design and the recognizable style of Soho House with a permanent exhibition of eighty works that dialogue with the original frescoes and decorative details of the building. Upon entering, to the left, we find two works by Josep Bonell (Barcelona, 1989) and one by Rita Sala (Barcelona, 1994), an artist from whom the club has acquired three works for this venue.

Kate Bryan highlights that Sala is creating extraordinary painting that should be on the radar and currently represents the gallery BETA Contemporary. On the same floor, a work by Regina Giménez (Barcelona, 1966) and the series Polyphilia by Eva Fàbregas (Barcelona, 1988) can be seen. Regarding the latter, Bryan explains that she had admired her work for a long time, ever since she saw her installation at the Hayward Gallery in London, where she was impressed by the way it occupied space. For her, being able to incorporate four works on paper by Fàbregas was very important.

The selection combines already established names, Eva Fàbregas, Regina Giménez, Antoni Tàpies, with emerging artists such as Bea Bonafini, Ana Monsó, Josep Maynou or Cristina Stolhe.

Going up the stairs towards the restaurant, another work by Rita Sala appears next to a work by Sara Bonache (Barcelona, 1991), winner of the Vila Casas Painting Prize 2025. In the Bistrot, the room is accompanied by paintings on domestic linen by Iván Forcadell, born in Alcanar in 1993 and resident in Barcelona, recovering the material and chromatic language characteristic of the house. The selection combines already established names, Eva Fàbregas, Regina Giménez, Antoni Tàpies, with emerging artists such as Bea Bonafini, Ana Monsó, Josep Maynou or Cristina Stolhe.

The interesting thing about Soho Pool House is not only the quality of the works, but the gesture behind it: that an international club, with venues halfway around the world, decides to invest time and budget in weaving a local network, listening to curators and artists from the city and acquiring work instead of merely acquiring works by international artists with whom they collaborate or have on their radar. It is a commitment that not all private spaces have and that is important to value, supporting and promoting local contemporary art in a space where so many people who reside in and visit the city enter, is very relevant.

Entering Soho Pool House is, in this sense, an opportunity to take the pulse of the current Barcelona art scene, condensed in the rooms of a dream house.