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The missing house of Carmen Nin i Tudó was located on the corner of Pau Claris with Aragón. The trains leaving the North and France stations still circulated along this last street at that time. The convoys were going through a ditch that had been built in the center to avoid the problems represented by their circulation at street level. The layout began at the future Plaça de les Glòries, turned off at Avenida de Roma and ended at the original Sants station (current Plaça de Sans).
The house was projected in 1881, being built a year later, by Frederic Soler i Catarineu. The architect planned the entrance door on the main façade facing Pau Claris and the garage door on Calle Aragón, from which a staircase led up to the main floor.
The entrance to the house was through an exterior gate that gave way to a small garden, in front of the building. Two curved stairs led from the garden that led to the entrance door of the estate and, between the two stairs, there was an entrance door to the ground floor.
The door on the ground floor of the entrance to Pau Claris, between the stairs of the main entrance, led to the service area where the kitchen, cellar, pantry, games rooms and other services and facilities were located. , on the Aragón street side, the entrance to the garage from which an internal staircase led up to the floors.
It also had two guest bedrooms. The second floor was dedicated to the family. The upper floor had an endless collection of dormer windows and a gallery in the center of the chamfered façade, finished in a pyramid.
On the Pau Claris side, Frederic Soler had built a small annexed chapel, to listen to mass on Sundays and holidays.
After the civil war, the building was acquired by the Guild of Bakers of Barcelona, ​​in order to demolish it and build the building of the Guild’s Social Headquarters. From that moment on, it was known as the CAPSA building (acronym for CompañÃa Auxiliar Panificadora, SA).
One of the first acts that are known was the feast of its patron Saint Honorato, which took place on May 18, 1949. First, a mass was celebrated in the cathedral for the deceased associates, and then an office for the archpriest of Martorell. .
Immediately afterwards, the associates moved to the CAPSA Assembly Hall, where the traditional distribution of savings books was carried out for the children of workers less than one year old and new impositions to those who already had them from past years.
In the evening, the opera Madame Butterfly was performed by the singers of the Gran Teatre del Liceo. Subsequently, the act was offered again on the 21st and 29th, so that all those associated with the union could listen to the work.
In 1950, the Guild of Bakers conditioned the ground floor, converting the auditorium into a theater for the entity’s activities and to offer sporadic shows performed by groups of amateur actors from the MarÃa Guerrero Club, as well as to be able to represent theater performances or zarzuelas.
Little by little, the place gained prestige as a theater and its performances were advertised in La Vanguardia. On Sunday, November 27, the newspaper announced the representation, in its fourth consecutive performance, of La Señorita Ãngeles. On Sunday, January 8, 1950, as CAPSA Theater Hall, it announced in its seventh performance the representation of El Refugio, by Pedro Muñoz Seca
In 1957, the representation of two performances of Cándida, by Bernard Shaw, was announced under the patronage of the British Institute, which were later suspended, according to an announcement in La Vanguardia on March 30 for various reasons. Later, in these performances they were represented at the Teatro Candilejas, on Rambla de Catalunya.
In 1969, in order to cover the expenses caused by maintenance and obtain some benefit for the entity, the guild decided to turn the premises into a stable theater, with a capacity of 330 stalls and 110 amphitheater seats, which give a capacity of total of 440 spectators.
On July 19, 1969, La Vanguardia published an announcement of the tender for the rental of the premises, which was awarded to the actor and director Pau Garsaball i Torrens for a period of 10 years.
Despite some promising beginnings, especially with the premiere of El retaule del flutista, by Jordi Teixidor, a work that managed to stay on the billboard for a year, the lack of profitability led to the decision to close the theater to become a movie theater. La Vanguardia of July 7, 1976, on page 56, gave the news of the immediate cessation of the theater to become a cinema.
The guild confirmed the news by announcing that, as of the last days of September, the CAPSA theater, which to date only functioned with theater performances, would become a special projection room.
After a restoration to adapt it as a cinematograph, it opens its doors on Monday, September 13, 1977, with the screening of the film El acorazado Potemkin, released in the 1930s, and the short Guernika.
On May 26, 1991, CAPSA made news again and not precisely for artistic reasons. The day before the room had been completely destroyed by a devastating fire.
In the early morning of May 25, 1991, a fire destroyed a large part of the cinema. It mainly affected the stalls in the audience and the local amphitheater, where it caused significant damage to the decoration, although the structure of the cinema did not suffer serious damage.
In a first assessment, those responsible for the cinema calculated that the cost of the repair could amount to forty million pesetas.
During the works, the projection of the films Cyrano de Bergerac and Ju Dou, which were offered in their original version, were suspended. After dizzying work, it reopened on Thursday, July 25 (two months after the fire), with the premiere of Quiet Days in Clichy, by Claude Chabrol,
The facade had changed the logo that presided over the building, although it was still the classic kaleidoscope. Inside, the capacity had changed from 409 to 379, which gave the spectator greater space.
The final cost, including a new screen, the renovation of the sound equipment and a smoke detection device inside the room, had an approximate cost of 40 million pesetas.
A quick action by the owners and the company that managed the programming returns the cinema to the spectators, two months later completely restored, but the decline in the attendance of spectators at the exhibition venues precipitated its definitive cessation, on December 29 from 1998.
It was when the exploitation contract maintained by the exhibitor Lauren Films with the projection of Alice et Martin, by André Téchiné, ended. Since then the old room has housed other commercial uses.
