In an edition of the Open House still marked by masks, the Seat dining rooms at the Zona Franca plant and its collection of historic cars have been one of the most iconic stops. This double visit was one of the few for which advance reservations were required, and tickets sold out in just 20 minutes. A total of 200 people were able to access these little-known spaces of the automotive company in the four shifts organized on Saturday and Sunday.
Visitors were able to learn about the history of this company, created in 1950, through the evolution of its vehicles. The A-122 Nave of the Zona Franca factory contains 170 historic cars out of the almost 400 that make up the Seat Históricos collection, including prototypes, race cars, and emblematic models. Popularly known as the Seat Museum, this nave is not open to the public, and few have been inside it. Its occupants go out for classic rallies, motorshows, or exhibitions, but seeing the entire collection is not easy, pending the company launching a museum that will allow the historical heritage hidden in this nave to be showcased.
Gathering all these pieces would not have been possible without Elvira Veloso, a worker who saved the most important cars for the brand and kept them in good condition. The past recovered by Veloso allows us to discover Seat's first car, which was not the 600, but the 1400, a modern, large, and high-end vehicle, as explained by the visit guide, Valentí Fradera, from the Seat Históricos team. The 1400 was not the product that was supposed to motorize the entire country, but the automotive company began manufacturing it to gradually start mass production and gain experience. It did so hand in hand with Fiat, its first technical partner. The Italian company was to provide the knowledge that was not available in Spain to allow the development of a local industry. The first 1400 was delivered at the end of 1953, and more than 50,000 units were produced.
The footprint of Fiat is seen in the designs of the first Seats, as well as in the names of the cars, which recall the still popular Cinquecento. The 600 was first presented in Italy, but was relegated by other Fiat models and did not, by any means, have the success it did achieve in Spain. In 1957, the first 600 was launched here, reaching a production of almost 800,000 cars until 1973. This model, more accessible than the 1400, became the emblem of Seat and also of the motorization process experienced by Spanish society during the 60s, as well as marking the arrival of weekend getaways and car vacations. Later more models would come, but none would be etched in the collective imagination as the 600 did.
These beginnings are accompanied by Seat's first convertible, the Spider, which evidences the economic evolution the country was experiencing; the 1 millionth car manufactured by the automaker, a Seat 124; the Seat Ronda, which caused a major dispute with Fiat, which sued the Spanish company for plagiarism; or the first Ibiza, which was also the first vehicle to have technology solely from Seat after the divorce with the Italian firm. There are also other more curious models such as the Panda converted into a Popemobile to carry John Paul II on a visit to Spain; a car dedicated by Shakira; a Seat León camouflaged with Gaudí's trencadís, and the first Cupra, which before becoming a brand in itself served to name Seat's sportiest vehicles. There is even one of the respirators that the company manufactured at the beginning of the pandemic.
A detail that caused surprise during the visit was understanding the meaning of the diagonal lines in the S logo of Seat. According to Fradera, they represent Barcelona's Diagonal, a nod to the city that hosted the company. In this sense, and as it could not be otherwise, the A-122 warehouse also houses the car that Seat designed for the Olympic Games.
The Seat dining rooms, a building ahead of its time
However, the history of Seat is not only hidden in its cars. Another little-known space of the company are the dining halls that architects César Ortiz-Echagüe, Manuel Barbero and Rafael de la Joya designed between 1953 and 1956 in the Zona Franca factory, the first one to be built, long before the Martorell one. It is a unique building in Spain and very advanced for its context, marked by the post-war period.
According to the guide of this second visit, architect and Eina professor, Albert Crispi, the building cannot be understood without "coincidences" that allowed it to happen, such as the plant being built on top of the Llobregat Delta and, therefore, the land having little consistency and not being able to support too much weight. This is why the dining halls were made with an aluminum structure, a light but also expensive material, which made architects and aeronautical engineers, more accustomed to this type of material, work together. To understand this choice, it should also be noted that one of the architects, César Ortiz-Echagüe, was the son of Seat's president, José Ortiz Echagüe. The executive had a company that built aluminum aircraft parts and, furthermore, was a lover of architecture made in the United States, very different from what predominated in Franco's Spain, which was more traditional.
The excellence of this building earned it the Reynolds Award in 1957, an award that allowed Seat to demonstrate that it was a company that could develop good technology, not only in cars but also in buildings. That is why the dining halls were featured in the automaker's catalogs. As a result of the international success of this building, César Ortiz-Echagüe became the company's reference architect. He remained so until he met Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer and abandoned architecture for religion, Crispi indicated.
Queues and more than 65,000 visits in a record edition
This year's edition of the 48H Open House has been a complete success. Unlike the double visit to Seat, which required prior registration, most of the activities organized by the architecture festival were free to enter, and this weekend there were queues to access buildings that are not open to the public during the rest of the year. A total of 65,182 visits were made, a record figure in the 12-year history of the Open House. The former Modelo prison, Casa Sayrach, the Horta Labyrinth Park, Torre Glòries, the Venetian Towers, Arc de Triomf, Torre Urquinaona, and Casa Adret have been the most visited buildings. Casa Seat, which hosted an exhibition reviewing the history of this cultural event, has also been one of the most popular.