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Located in the Verdún neighborhood (next to the Roquetas cinema located a few numbers earlier), the now defunct Cristal cinema was built on 84-86 Viladrosa street.
The first intention of its owner, Martín Urrutia Miró, was to build a multipurpose room on the site of his property in which he could combine sporting events of wrestling and boxing matches, variety programs combined with the holidays of a track. dance hall known as Salón Cristal Club, which since its beginnings in the 1950s was considered the neighborhood’s dance hall.
Despite the acceptance that his venue had with the different events, Urrutia verified that his neighbor Cine Roquetas, with less organizational work, attracted a similar number of spectators to the venue. So he decided to change the Cristal Club Room for the new Cristal cinema.
Urrutia contacted the architect Josep Canela Tomás to convert the existing premises into the best equipped cinema in the Verdún neighborhood.
Josep Canela designed a store with a glass façade divided with large glass windows and a gallery that protruded at the top and an interior divided into a ground floor and two floors.
On the ground floor was the lobby, box office, cafeteria, ceilings with images of the films being projected and an audience with two entrance/exit doors to the interior of the audience decorated in soft tones and with a capacity of 728 spectators. At the back and on both sides of the screen were the men’s and ladies’ toilets.
The amphitheater on the first floor was reached through two stairs that left the lower hall which, as on the lower floor, was entered through two entrance/exit doors with a capacity of 375 spectators, which gave it a Total venue capacity of 1,103 spectators.
On the upper floor, through a staircase that went up from the amphitheater, was the engine room and the attached warehouse. For a long time it was the place with the best projection equipment and the best seats in the neighborhood.
The Cristal cinema was managed by Manuel Barber, who inaugurated it in June 1961. He was in charge until January 1, 1963, when the company Pedro Balañá collaborated in its management, which modernized the interior of the premises and installed the air conditioning, apart from the fact that the programming was significantly improved.
The great expansion that the Balañá company had achieved in those years, which, apart from bullfighting, had been involved in the world of entertainment, caused the company to disappear in 1973 and Pedro Balañá took over the entire company.
Balañá’s intention was the definitive implantation in the neighborhood. where until then he only owned the Favencia cinema, with which he shared the same rolls that were exchanged by the cyclist on duty.
Both cinemas, which until then were only known in the neighborhood, began to appear on newspaper billboards. El Cristal began to appear in advertising, in the defunct TP magazine (a publication that appeared weekly on newsstands), which reported on television programs and was printed in big cities and which, among other information, published a billboard of the less important cinemas and which did not allow daily newspaper advertising.
Although some information gives the date of 1976, when it appeared on the billboard of La Vanguardia, I must rectify it, since its first appearance in the newspaper took place on Tuesday, December 3, 1974 (on those dates, Mondays were not La Vanguardia was published), with the screening of: The Girl at the Red Mill and Black Turin. It was striking that it was reported that, on Wednesday, the cinema was closing.
The advertising in the newspapers had an effect in the neighborhood, causing an increase in the number of spectators. So on Tuesday, February 25, 1975, the advertisement published again in La Vanguardia, reported for the first time: “Open all week”, screening: Jenaro of the 14 and The New Centurions.
The arrival of video and video stores made survival difficult and neighborhood cinemas began to lose market share and close their doors. The same thing happened to Crystal as well, although there are errors in this as well. The closing date is given as December 31, 1984, when in reality it was January 6, 1985, Three Kings Day. La Vanguardia, on its page 30, announced the programming of Supergirl and The Priest’s Son.
That day it stopped appearing permanently. For many years the building remained closed until the site was acquired to convert it into a Day Center dependent on the Generalitat. After a time of apparent inactivity and clearing the last rubble of the missing Cristal cinema, the site was prepared for the construction of homes.
In the place where the cinema used to be, 25 sheltered apartments for the elderly were built by the architect Pere Giol.
