On Tuesday the Basilica of the Conception was filled. The funeral for Luis López Lamadrid brought together numerous family members – he was the fourth of eleven siblings – and friends, in much of the cultural world. After the religious service celebrated by Father Carlos Pérez Laporta, a rising figure in Barcelona’s Sunday preaching, people close to him spoke.
Oriol Aguilà, current director of the Perelada festival, recalled Luis’ continued work in favor of music for twenty years at the head of this summer meeting, which he launched in harmony with Carmen Mateu; Her sister Elda referred to the radiating role within the family, and the role of the Cantabrian town of Comillas as a summer Eden, until she began to spend summers in Menorca, where she died last August.
Francisco de Sert, Frankie, Luis’s second cousin and close friend since childhood, recalled that they formed a solid tandem: “Luis was slow, temperate, rational, with great common sense; I a free verse, something impertinent,” he said; He alluded to the famous dry martinis prepared by the deceased’s mother, Marta Satrústegui, Marchioness of Lamadrid, “the most elegant and elegant lady in Barcelona”, and explained that the two called each other every day to discuss current political events.
I met Luis López Lamadrid in what has been his last stage as a cultural manager, here altruistic: member of the Círculo de Liceo, he played a key role in its modernization and connection with social and creative current events, alongside Pepe García Reyes and under the mandates of Ignacio García Nieto and Paco Gaudier. Luis, a great host, always had a story, an anecdote or an observation ready.
Before Luis, I treated his brother Antonio -Toni-, and his nephew Claudio, a lot, respectively, who died in 2009 -fourteen years already!- and 2019. Both are now part of the history of the edition. Toni was decisive in the success of Tusquets along with Beatriz de Moura: for his financial and organizational skills but also for his love of detective novels, which brought good titles to the house. Claudio carried out innovative work in what is now the Penguin Random House group in his approach to the most recent narrative, with a special Latin American vocation.
Luis and Toni, a year younger, looked quite similar physically: tall, with beards (seasonally), easy smile, warm, cosmopolitan, elegant; perhaps Luis more reserved than Toni, who was pure expansive friendliness. Claudio shared a family resemblance with them.
All three exuded what the French call charme, charm with a touch of sophistication that gives its possessor the power of social magnetization. And they were drawn towards the gastronomic business: Toni was a partner in the La Balsa restaurant, which was supervised by another sister, Memé; Claudio launched the Salero restaurant and the Sal Café; Luis set up a pioneering cocktail bar in El Born with film director Jaime Camino; He was a partner of Neichel and more recently of Igueldo, which his daughter Ana directs, a common meeting point and editorial conspiracy in Barcelona.
The funeral of the Concepción was filled with surnames of what the anthropologist Gary Wray McDonogh called in a well-known book “the good families of Barcelona”, extensive clans linked together by ties at different levels, several of them oriented to activity and cultural sponsorship.
Someone might think that they made up the conservative core of the Catalan patriciate, and at least in part they would be wrong: Sert recalled the evolution of Luis and him towards the left in their university days, “which with its pluses and minuses we have maintained until today.” In their day they helped furnish the PSUC offices “in solidarity with Eurocommunism” and then they voted for PSC (the last time, yes, with little enthusiasm, Sert pointed out in what constituted a curious confession in the context of a funeral).
It is said that Toni once passed Santiago Carrillo across the border hidden in the trunk of his car. And Tusquets was a pillar of the “progressive” edition of democracy.
From the world of books, music and restaurants, the López Lamadrids remembered here have contributed to creating a more cultured, modern, fun and interesting Barcelona.
