For more than four years, tourists visiting Barcelona and strolling through Colón and Portal de la Pau have been wondering what that singular building is that presides over the square and offers an almost ghostly appearance, without glass in its windows and with its main architectural elements covered by nets. It is the historic building of the Port of Barcelona, a property built in 1907 and which, shortly, after a decade of oblivion, will once again show its best face and integrate into the life of the city transformed into a Port Interpretation Center.
This new life will be possible after the board of directors of the Port Authority of Barcelona (APB) awarded the rehabilitation works of the Portal de la Pau building this Wednesday to a temporary union of companies made up of Dragados, Urcotex and CRC. The contract amount is 15.63 million euros and the execution period is 18 months, although it will be carried out in two phases. The idea is that the works begin after the summer and that, just within a year, before the start of the America's Cup, all exterior works have been completed, that is, the rehabilitation of the four facades and all architectural elements visible from outside the building.
The objective is that the thousands of visitors to the America's Cup can once again see the Portal de la Pau in all its splendor, ending the current image of abandonment in an area that will be the epicenter of the competition. Thus, starting in August 2024, the rehabilitation works will be paralyzed and the construction crane will be dismantled. At the end of October, once the regattas have finished, the construction companies will re-enter the building to execute the works on the three interior floors, with the aim of completing the remodeling by the end of the first quarter of 2025, as announced by the president of the APB, Lluís Salvadó.
The definitive unblocking of this project comes after a long administrative litany, as it is the second time that the Port of Barcelona has awarded the work. Curiously, the winning temporary union of companies (UTE) has been the same in both tenders, but for a very different amount. The APB commissioned the rehabilitation of the Portal de la Pau to Dragados ---a construction company of the ACS Group--, Urcotex and CRC in the autumn of 2016 for an amount of 9.7 million euros and a project execution forecast of 21 months. This deadline, however, was not met and, at the beginning of 2019, the works stopped, until today.
What caused that stoppage? The problem is that the construction companies, once the work began, saw that the works that needed to be carried out were greater and more burdensome than expected and did not correspond to the amount of the award. It must be taken into account that it is a centenary building protected as a Cultural Asset of Local Interest (BCIL), with many heritage elements that need to be restored to recover the original aesthetics. The awardees tried to renegotiate with the Port, but being a public tender, the strict regulations did not allow for such a substantial modification of the award amount. This led to the UTE finally withdrawing from carrying out the work, which forced the APB to restart the entire award procedure from scratch.
This process was delayed until last March, when the Council of Ministers authorized a new tender, for a maximum amount of 17.28 million. Finally, the renovation of the Portal de la Pau has been awarded again for 15.63 million, to the same companies that made up the original UTE.
The rehabilitation project plans to recover the main entrance hall, on the ground floor, as well as the stairs and the so-called hypostyle hall. The idea is to install a Port Interpretation Center at this street-level to explain to citizens the complex functioning of this key infrastructure for the city, as well as its contribution to the economy and society.
On the first floor, the grand hall, covered by a vault, will be recovered, restoring all original decorative elements to be able to dedicate it to protocol uses of the Port of Barcelona, which used the building as its corporate headquarters until 2010, when it moved to the World Trade Center (WTC), although the property remains its official headquarters. In this sense, a new room will be enabled for holding the sessions of the APB's board of directors, and a new protocol office for the presidency will also be built. Finally, the Portal de la Pau has a mezzanine, where various services and offices will be located. According to the project, the rooftop terraces will also be recovered.
The Portal de la Pau building was designed by engineer Julio Valdés y Humarán. It was built between 1903 and 1907 and initially functioned as a maritime station, so on the ground floor were ticket sales counters, baggage inspection, offices of shipping companies, police, customs, and all kinds of services, such as a post and telegraph office. In parallel, on the first floor, a luxury restaurant, El Mundial Palace, was inaugurated, which soon became the preferred place of the Barcelona bourgeoisie of the time and was the scene of great banquets and political, sports, social, and cultural events. The restaurant operated until 1918, when it was decided to dedicate the entire building to the Port Works Board.