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Mariano Fuster i Fuster, lawyer, son of Rafael Ignacio Fuster Forteza, a Mallorcan businessman, decided to come to Barcelona to dedicate himself to politics apart from his legal profession.
His knowledge of politics and his father’s friendships led him to be appointed deputy mayor of the Barcelona City Council. He was a great fan of painting.
He had fallen in love with Consol Fabra i Puig, daughter of the Marquis of Alella, who had an impressive beauty and wanted to give her a house for the wedding that was in keeping with her.
Fuster had received the Possessió de Galatzó as a gift from his father, which he had bought for 120,000 Majorcan pounds (about 398,615.91 pesetas), which he later sold in 1880 in order to build a house that would be the envy of all.
At first, he bought the old Juncosa chocolate factory that existed at 132 Paseo de Gracia, which was on the corner of Calle Salmerón (later Mayor de Gracia, now Gran de Gràcia), one of the best places on the outskirts of the city. We have to take into account that Villa de Gracia had been annexed to Barcelona in 1897.
He contacted Lluis Domènech i Montaner, one of the most famous and prestigious architects of those times, and commissioned him to build a palace house that would match the beauty of his wife.
After obtaining the necessary permits in 1905 to demolish the previous building and build the new building, the works began in 1908 and ended in 1911.
The Fuster i Fabra family moved to live on the main floor of the building, leaving the rest of the floors as rental areas, something very frequent at that time.
In 1911, it was considered the most expensive house in the city due to the materials used in its construction (including high-quality marble). The façade of the house was the first building made with white marble in Barcelona and the last work that Domènech i Montaner carried out for individuals.
But, due to the high cost of erecting the building and verifying the costly maintenance, the Fuster-Fabra family, at the beginning of the 1920s, stopped living in the house.
The rents were high according to the category of the building, which caused it to change tenants, somewhat following the vicissitudes of the city’s history and the influential people of the time, who wanted to afford to reside there.
The ground floors were also run by various companies that rented it out, demonstrating their economic power.
In 1922, La Casa de Remates was installed, which was dedicated to auctioning items in liquidation. Also in 1922, Anita Monrós, with her Fashion Show. In 1923, Dalmau Oliveres. Subsequently, the Official Chamber of Property opened its offices, which occupied the ground floor that belonged to Calle Salmerón 2. The Horchatería Valenciana (now the Domènech Montaner Room) was also installed in one of the ground floor.
In the 1930s, Hitler’s Germany occupied one of its plants to install the German consulate in our city. Mussolini installed for a time the Italian Institute.
In the autumn of 1936, the same floor of the building housed the headquarters of the youth of the POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification), which, after breaking relations with the Mussolini regime, had seized the premises.
There was also organized during the days of May 1937 the so-called committee for the defense of the revolution promoted by the Iberian Communist Youth, the CNT, the FAI and the Libertarian Youth. Willy Brandt (another of the personalities who paraded through the Casa Fuster) attended this meeting, long before the floor was occupied by the Chancellery of the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 1939, after the civil war, the Spanish Falange and Social Assistance was installed in the building, which was in charge of providing emblems for the activities of shows and events.
The Sociedad Anónima Ymbern, a textile factory in Mataró, also settled there. In the 40s, the Viennese Café; and, in the 50s, the Rocafort Furriery.
Of all the illustrious tenants who lived in the house, there is the poet Salvador Espriu, who together with his friend and comrade Manuel de Pedrolo, spent hours talking and commenting on their concerns at the Café Vienés.
They comment on Salvador Espriu that he wanted to stay in one of his floors despite the fact that the building did not have an elevator and that it was not until he had a serious leg injury that he agreed to move to a nearby farm.
In 1960 the ENHER hydroelectric company paid 11 million pesetas for the acquisition of the building. His intention was none other than to tear it down and, on the site, build a modern office building that would be named Torre Barcelona.
He published an announcement in La Vanguardia on June 12, 1962, summoning all Spanish architects to present projects for the new building, with prizes of 150,000, 75,000 and 35,000 pesetas.
The residents of the Gracia neighborhood openly opposed such nonsense. They immediately found the support of a group of young architects, including Oriol Bohigas, who were joined by the Destino magazine and the Diario de Barcelona, ??who launched an exhaustive campaign to stop the project.
The fight was arduous, if we take into account that, since 1957, José María de Porcioles had become mayor of Barcelona, ??the main culprit during the time of his mandate for the disappearance of many modernist buildings.
In 1999, Casa Fuster was put up for sale and, a year later, the Hoteles Center company acquired the building to build a new and elegant hotel. After four years of refurbishment works and rehabilitation of areas of artistic interest, it opened its doors in 2004 as the five-star Casa Fuster Hotel. At that time, Woody Allen filmed several sequences for the film Vicky Cristina Barcelona at its facilities.
Over these years the hotel has managed to become a benchmark for quality and service, with the new Café Vienés, El Jazz Club, where director Woody Allen and his jazz band performed on June 30, 2007. The Galaxó restaurant also stands out. From the viewpoint of the terrace you can see a spectacular view of Barcelona while enjoying a drink and the outdoor pool.
The Hotel Casa Fuster has the privilege of having received the distinction of being the first 5-star hotel with the name “GL Monumental”.