The Equestrian Circus in the Plaza de Catalunya

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The missing Equestrian Circus of Barcelona was installed in blocks 39 and 40 with a very precarious municipal permit. He ended up succumbing to the demands of the municipal government for this area to become buildable and for what is now Plaza de Catalunya to be built so that citizens could celebrate festive events there, until then restricted to the interior of the city. walled

Although most stories say that the Equestrian Circus was owned by the company Alegría y Chiessi, there is a somewhat different version.

Due to the precariousness that existed at the start of the circus company due to the problem due to the dispute over the urbanization of the area, the Italian acrobat Arturo Chiíes, faced with the insecurity that his project offered, soon abandoned it and a series of families were from the circus world those who came together to try to raise it.

Gil Vicente Alegría, with his wife Micaela, was the true creator of the Equestrian Circus in 1879 along with other circus families and some individual artists. Among the families were Jarque’s, with his wife Kamila, and the Briatore family, from Mondovi (Italy), whose patriarch was married to María Alegría.

The discrepancies between the central and city governments over the future of this area of ??Barcelona were long and intense, which allowed the Equestrian Circus to have an active life of 16 years, when, due to the demands of the urbanization of the definitive Plaza de Catalonia, the Equestrian Circus disappeared and had to be demolished.

In 1879, the company Alegría y Chiessi obtained provisional permission from the city council to develop the circus show.

The construction of the Equestrian Circus was carried out by Francisco Comas, who built a structure (in what would today be the center of the current Plaza de Catalunya), with an approximate capacity of 3,000 seats to develop a circus show.

The enclosure would have stables for the animals, a cafe-restaurant and a rest patio for spectators.

To the center court. In the center of the construction, five rows of preferred chairs followed, behind which the boxes were located, separated from the general stands by a corridor.

The dome was covered with waterproof fabric supported by the outer wall and by wooden columns raised around the arena, with hanging banners with circus figures as decoration. The lighting of the runway was provided by a gas circle located at a regular height on the columns.

The Equestrian Circus was inaugurated on May 21, 1879. Apart from the artists, it had personnel to accommodate the spectators, ring attendants who wore impeccable and original costumes.

During breaks, elegant and graceful ladies walked the aisles selling flowers. They were the first theater florists in Barcelona and possibly in Spain, who implemented the custom imported from Paris by Alegría. General admission cost three reales and two for a half ticket for children.

The day after the inauguration, the press published the premiere commenting on the great reception it had received from the public. In another section, the performances of Mlle. Micaela and M. Wolsi, the flying hats of the clowns Alfredo, Arturo and Pilades and the performance of the English clown Tony Grice.

That’s not why everything was congratulatory, the press criticized the fact that there was only one entrance door due to the danger it represented. Alegría and Comas read the comment and, a few days later, the circus had another side door.

The concession for the celebration of the Barcelona International Exhibition of 1888 made the government reconsider its refusal to change the Cerdà Plan project and suspend blocks 39 and 40, so it promulgated a Royal Order in the Official State Gazette, date September 4, 1886, in which a competition for the urbanization of Plaza de Catalunya was held.

This decree paralleled the fever of the living forces of the city’s upper class who wanted to occupy the land with new mansions, since they were in danger of disappearing in a not too distant time. Risk that the buildings of Casa Gibert, Casa Estruch, Casa Rosich, Casa Grases, Teatro del Nuevo Retiro, the Café del Siglo XIX or the Pajarera and the Equestrian Circus itself ran.

In 1895, after the authorization for the construction of the square was confirmed, the Equestrian Circus suffered municipal pressure to free up all the space it had occupied until then.

The Equestrian Circus ended its history in the Plaza de Catalunya on October 29, 1895. Immediately afterwards the municipal brigades began the demolition.

The Equestrian Circus will always be remembered as a chapter within the principles of the Plaza de Catalunya when the place was only a plot of land on which blocks 39 and 40 of the Cerdà Plan for the urbanization of Eixample would be developed.