The history of the Gralla house emerges from 1306, when Pere Desplà acquires the lot, and until the 19th century it will chain more lineages: Gralla, Aitona, Cardona and Medinaceli. The Prince of Viana came to stay there.
She had always admired the subtle combination of a seated Gothic and a pointing Renaissance. The sculptural ornamentation attributed to Damià Forment, the most outstanding artist of the period, was an unfounded oral tradition.
Being the owner of the Duke of Medinaceli, its decline broke the heart, not so much because it was converted into a school, but because it was so ruined. Then emerged the gloomy interpretation of the words engraved on the bases of the two columns of the main door, above, asymmetrical: publicae privatae. The plebs interpreted the Latin venustati as the announcement of a brothel: venustas. The truth was that the inscription referred to public ornament and private utility.
The much-loved Gralla house already had its days numbered. The campaign launched by Diari de Barcelona to save it was futile. It was condemned to demolition (1856) due to an urban planning operation to build a façade of desperate vulgarity, house a bazaar and open Carrer Delícies, later Nou del Duc de la Victòria.
The most embarrassing thing was what happened next.
A good part of everything that had been dismantled or fragmented was deposited by order of the tycoon Josep Xifré in front of the Tallers bastion, set later moved to the Sant Martí de Provençals park, remains acquired by the Marquis of Casa Brusi destined for the tower of Sant Gervasi.
Another deposit was the cloister of Santa Anna; this is how the appearance of the abandoned sculptural border on the site of the future Plaça Catalunya is explained. The collector Francesc Santacana put it out of harm’s way in his Museum of Martorell. And the fate of a traveling playground luckily ended up at the headquarters of Prosegur in l’Hospitalet.
The architect Puig i Cadafalch, so sensitive to the historical perspective, paid a fitting tribute to the Gralla house when he designed the Serra house; and evoking that delicate front door, he also gave it an original asymmetry, as he had already done in the Amatller house and the Quadras palace.
