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España Industrial, Sociedad Anónima Fabril y Mercantil, was a textile company founded in Madrid on January 28, 1847 by the Muntadas family from Igualada.
The Muntadas family, which had had a cotton spinning factory on Tapias Street in 1828, seeing the possibilities of the time, decided to establish the company Pau Muntadas e Hijos in 1839, moving a year later to Riereta Street with the new company. Muntadas Hermanos factory.
The progression of business made them look to Madrid, where they arrived in 1841 and installed a warehouse, to provide customers with a much faster service and thus saving the intervention of intermediaries.
This progression was what decided in 1842 Antoni Muntadas i Campeny, the youngest of the seven brothers, to buy the land in the municipality of Sants, where they would later build the legendary España Industrial, before the municipality was absorbed by Barcelona. It became the first cotton company to be created in Spain.
Far away was the old Riereta Street, the disappeared factory that ran on steam. Due to its good functioning, it allowed them to obtain a number of bank deposits that they decided to invest.
Muntadas took advantage of the demand for Spanish textile articles and the protectionist policy of the time and the friendships he had in the liberal and progressive circles he had in Madrid, to found on January 28, 1847 the first Manufacturing and Mercantile Joint Stock Company in Spain, known as La España Industrial, appointing his brother Isidro as director.
A year earlier, the first two Spanish textile companies that used steam engines had been founded: La Industrial Malagueña, owned by the Larios y Herrera family, and in Villa de Sans outside the walls of Barcelona El Vapor Vell, owned by Güell, Ramis and Company, which was chaired by Joan Güell i Ferrer.
In 1851, Industrial Spain, due to the economic problems that had affected the shareholders since 1848, moved to Barcelona, on land acquired in 1847 next to the Riera de Magoria, in the premises that we all know and that are now dedicated to the leisure, sports and culture.
The competition that existed then with the Güell i Ferrer factory meant that for some time among the inhabitants of Sans the new factory was known as El Vapor Nou.
The machinery was imported from Great Britain and Alsace, places that were at the forefront of textile issues at the time. The construction of the new factory was rapid and, in 1853, it was already fully operational.
The progression was so great that, in 1880, it reached the unparalleled number of 2,500 workers, something unheard of at that time, in the town of Sans.
The industrial development of the company completely transformed the municipality, which had not yet been annexed to Barcelona and which went from 2,300 inhabitants in 1840 to 30,000 in 1887.
Since its beginning, the factory acquired an important prestige, not only for the quality of its fabrics but also for the binding paper.
Industrial Spain also stood out for its social action with workers, having set up a soup kitchen, a daycare center for working women and sports facilities, which even included a soccer field.
In 1909, Alfonso
In 1934 Matías Muntadas founded the C.D España Industrial team, which for a few years was the subsidiary of Fútbol Club Barcelona. Later, it became C. D. Condal and is currently Barcelona B.
The results achieved took the team to the Second Division and on two occasions it acquired the right to play in the play-offs to go up to the First Division, an achievement achieved in the 1956 season.
The adventure failed and he returned to the Second Division again, where he spent four seasons. Subsequently, it was relegated to Third Division and, in 1970, it merged with Atlético de Cataluña, a subsidiary of F. C. Barcelona, becoming the current Barcelona B.
In 1936, like many others, the factory was requisitioned by the republican forces, who remained in command. After the war, Industrial Spain returned again to the Muntadas i Rovira family.
But the new textile trends of the time caused the factory to close in 1969. In 1972 it moved to Mollet del Vallès and the site was acquired by the city council, which built the new Parque de la España Industrial next to the Sants Station.
The transformation suffered by the textile sector with the introduction of synthetic fibers caused the company to also close in its new location, in 1981, after long problems in the last years of its existence.
