* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
The history of the missing building on the corner of Ronda de Sant Pere and Plaça de Catalunya is little known by many, but what is more important is that it has nothing to do with the philanthropist Vicente Ferrer Moncho, born in Barcelona on April 9, 1920 and died in India on June 19, 2009.
The history of the Vicente Ferrer House begins when a shopkeeper known as Vicente Ferrer Garriga decided to build a residential building in 1886 and dedicate the ground floor of the premises to a store and warehouse for the wholesale sale of chemical and pharmaceutical products.
The chosen site was located between the streets Comercio 60-64, Ribera, 2 and Antic de Sant Joan, 7. Vicente Ferrer Garriga decided to hire Antoni Rovira i Rabassa as an architect, who planned to build a large building with three stairs and a door Individual entrance consisting of a ground floor and four floors high and a large roof terrace.
Although there are three neighboring staircases, we cannot speak of three buildings because the commercial premises on the ground floor are unique, an open floor without any dividers. A staircase in the center of the premises went up to the first floor, where the Ferrer family home was located, which had a chapel and two galleries on the sides.
The flourishing of the business made his son, Vicente Ferrer Bertrand, decide to open a store for the public to be able to sell the products that until then were sold wholesale in the original premises.
Ferrer Bertrand acquired a property located on the corner of Ronda de Sant Pere and Plaça de Catalunya, owned by Miquel Buixeda i Crehuet. Later he contacted Salvador Vinyals i Sabaté to build him a building, with a ground floor and mezzanine, which he would dedicate to the business of retailing drugstore and pharmacy items. And it had five more floors, among which the Newé Pension would be installed on the top floor.
Salvador Vinyals was supported by the construction of the Lyric Theater in 1881, the Novedades Theater in 1890, the Model Prison between 1888 and 1904 and the restoration of the Gran Teatro del Liceu in 1898.
The building had a slate finish. The black of the material stood out against the light construction. In the chamfer, a wide dome stood out, higher than the rest.
The solemnity of its construction was highly appreciated by the public and artists and, in 1916, it won one of the prizes awarded by the City Council to promote artistic buildings.
In 1919, Vicente Ferrer, seeing the possibility of expanding the building, acquired Casa Jaumandreu at number 13, with the aim of demolishing it and attaching it to the old construction with the intention of opening the new Hotel Victoria, maintaining the same style of the old one and thereby starting a tough competition with the neighboring Gran Hotel Colón.
Despite the great service and majesty that the building gave to Plaça de Catalunya, the continued progression of El Corte Inglés, which had already built an extension in Ronda de Sant Pere, caused the department stores to gobble up the small one. Thus, in 1968 it acquired Vicente Ferrer's house to unify its commercial offering in a single building, which led to the disappearance of the building, the ground floor store and the Hotel Victoria.
The start of construction coincided with the dates of Christmas 1968, which generated a short excursion for the customers of El Corte Ingles, since the department store enabled a passage through the bowels of the old building to make it easier for customers to move. interior between both properties to prevent them from going out into the street to go from one to the other.
According to various news reports, the site for the expansion operation belonged to an owner who had rented it for a period of time, since its owners wanted to have converted the old building into offices, but due to the high cost of the remodeling they preferred to transfer it to El English court.
On December 4, 2015, Michel Nowé from Ghent, Belgium, made this comment on Barcelophilia.
Roberto Nowé was the uncle of my grandfather, Henri Nowé (1894-1986). Roberto Nowé was born on September 7, 1869 in Ghent (Belgium). He married the Spanish girl Pilar. During the civil war he returned to Belgium. And I think my grandfather told me that he returned to Barcelona and died there.
Unfortunately, Barcelona has not been able to preserve many of its emblematic buildings.
