One of the enigmas of the cultural life of Barcelona is knowing what fate the old Comedia cinema building will ultimately have, on the corner of Gran Via and Passeig de Gràcia. The Baroness Thyssen, Carmen Cervera, has presented, together with the investment firm Stoneweg, a project to the owners to convert the place into a museum that would house part of their art collection, as well as various cultural activities.
The project is one of the finalists for the use of the building. Its owners, the Pla and Planàs families, affirm that the decision has not yet been made, that it will not be made in a short period of time and that there are other cultural proposals well placed in the final stretch. As this newspaper has learned, just under a dozen initiatives have been presented. One of them has to do with musical concerts and another with the screening of preview films linked to film festivals.
Carmen Cervera told La Vanguardia that she would be very excited if this project came to fruition because it would be the best way to pay tribute to the city where she was born. She always shared with Baron Thyssen the desire that the art they treasured could be shared by as many people as possible and, being one of the most important art collectors in the world, she has promoted all kinds of cultural activities. “Being able to now house in my city, Barcelona, ??an important museum of some of the best works of Catalan art is the best legacy I can leave to the following generations,” she told this newspaper. Sources familiar with the negotiating process affirm that it is entering its final stretch and that the Carmen Cervera and Stoneweg project would imply a “long-term concession, of about 25 years, which would allow the project to grow,” since it would not be limited to not only be a container for works but also aspires to energize the cultural life of the city and reflect various aspects of art collecting in general. Before focusing on the Comedia cinema, the promoters of the project have studied other locations in Barcelona.
Carmen Cervera’s dream of having her own museum in Barcelona comes from afar. After fourteen years of free loan of her personal collection at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid, the Baroness surprised everyone in 2013 with the announcement that she was going to transfer a hundred works from the Madrid art gallery to the creation of a new museum that would his name in the Victòria Eugènia Palace, at the foot of Montjuïc. Her desire for her collection to be present in her hometown was accompanied by the need to find a profitability that at that time was not guaranteed by the Government of Madrid after years of renegotiating with the Ministry of Culture.
In the creation of the Carmen Thyssen center, one of the star projects of the then called Explanada de los Museos, the City Council, the Generalitat, the Fira and La Caixa were involved, but the high cost of renting the works (there was talk of five million euros) to which had to be added the remodeling of the pavilion in an adverse economic context, ended up frustrating the operation. Carmen Thyssen made her position clear: she would not give away her works for free. “I have heirs,” she argued.
The reactivation of the project, now in the Comedia cinema, occurs only a year after, after two decades of negotiations, she finally signed an agreement with the Ministry of Culture by which she and her son Borja Thyssen will receive 97.5 million euros for 15 years for the rental of his collection, now renamed Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. The agreement refers to 330 works of which 179 are already exhibited; all protected with a State guarantee of 1.7 billion dollars (about 1.4 billion euros). According to the contract, the owners will be able to dispose of, and even sell, three works from the collection, among which its star work, Mata Mua, by Gaughin, insured for 250 million dollars, is excluded.
Apart from the collection that is exhibited in the Thyssen-Bornemisza, Carmen Cervera has three museums to her name in Sant Feliu de Guíxols (until now the space has hosted temporary exhibitions of Catalan painting but this autumn the works of a future museum for whose project the former Minister of Culture Ferran Mascarell has been recruited), Málaga (dedicated to 19th century Spanish painting) and Andorra.
Stoneweg currently manages the Palau Martorell in Barcelona, ??which hosts exhibitions on a regular basis, promotes an exhibition center in the Godó i Trias factory in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and manages the information center for the Copa América in the old Imax cinema. He also tried to create a Hermitage headquarters in Barcelona, ??an initiative that he ended up rejecting.
As far as Comedy cinema is concerned, last January 14 was the last day of the cinema that bore that name. The iconic venue closed the shutters of its five theaters after six decades offering weekly premieres. In addition to the challenges it had to deal with during the pandemic, the establishment had been going through a delicate situation since 2017, but managed to avoid the threat of eviction when the Yelmo chain took over its management.
Before bringing together Barcelona’s film-loving public, the building was first a private residence (Palau Marcet) from 1887 to 1934, and later became the Comedy Theater until 1960 when it became one of the main cinemas in the city. The plot located at Passeig de Gràcia number 13 had belonged to Lorenzo Oller, who had acquired it in 1869. The politician and businessman Frederic Marcet, like all those figures who stood out in Barcelona’s high society, bought the old building and built a new one. to your liking with an impressive garden. A garden that disappeared in 1909 to give the land to the manufacturer Domingo Comamala, who had the initiative to build the first cinema in the area, the Metropolitan Cinemaway. The premises were later acquired by Pere Garriga, and gave rise to the first Ideal cinema. In 1924, it was demolished to build the Casa Llibre Restaurant. In 1934, Marcet sold the Palacete and it was transformed into the Teatro de la Comedia. And already in 1960, the theater closed its doors for a renovation with a screen and projection equipment to convert it into the Comedy cinema. And so on until 2024. What seemed like ‘The end’ has been ‘To be continued’.
