* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
The history of the buildings of the Correos service in Barcelona goes back to 1338, when Bernat Marcús patron and banker, built the first office inside the chapel of San Marcús, located next to a primitive hospital and cemetery, at the confluence of Carders and Moncada streets.
It was a type of brotherhood that, in 1716, Philip V incorporated into the crown and whose regulations were promulgated in 1720. The place was then located on Correu Vell (Old Post Office) street.
The Marcús chapel was the headquarters of the medieval post office at the time. It is the oldest building in Europe related to the exchange of correspondence between people and institutions or commerce and the first central post office in Barcelona. A kind of Post House, where horses were replaced on long trips.
During the period in which Casa Gibert (the first in Eixample) was built in the center of the current Plaza de Catalunya, a post office was located at the left end of the building on the side closest to the Martorell station.
Its location little by little was criticized not only by citizens but also by municipal authorities and, of course, by the press itself. This caused national authorities to seek to locate a new location for a new central Post Office.
As the economic problems were great and it was difficult to build a new building in the new center of the city with face and eyes, at the end of the 19th century the government found a patron who solved the situation.
The patron was none other than Joaquim Prats who, at the end of 1889, built a building with neoclassical lines measuring twenty-six thousand square feet to rent it for a period of ten years to the Spanish Government to temporarily install the new central office of the House of Post office in Barcelona.
Prats had built a simple building in a Greco-Roman style with a façade that highlighted the elegance of its design.
In the center of the lower part of the façade there was a wide, somewhat elevated door, guarded by four windows barred with wrought iron to prevent the irregular entry of possible exalted people.
The first floor had five balconies with marble railings, including a central balcony with a projection to the street from which speeches could be given to the public, something common at that time. On the four side balconies the railing was flush with the façade. All five exits were framed by column-like ornaments.
The second floor was made up of four windows and a central balcony with a marble railing topped by a cornice with a frontispiece in the center, which was adorned with a clock and at the top a staff raised the flag of Spain.
Inside, an open lobby welcomed users. To the right was the section for printed matter and list letters. On the left, the department responsible for delivering letters and newspapers. Leaving the lobby you entered a large atrium with abundant overhead light, which entered through the glass ceiling.
Around the patio a circular melis railing leaving a small square for the public, a circuit with several windows that corresponded to the sections of certified forms, certificates for the peninsula, declared values ??for the Kingdom, certificates for foreigners and declared values ??for the foreign.
The building was inaugurated on March 1, 1890. La Vanguardia, on page 4, commented on the visit made the previous day, welcoming the new building and criticizing the poor service that citizens had received in the old one.
He gave readers an explanation of the façade of the new building and praised the new construction, calling it simple and elegant. He followed the story of him explaining to readers the new and different interior departments and their location inside the building.
In his extensive article he commented:
“Two shames for Barcelona: the building where the Courts are located and where the Postal Administration was also housed. Every time we were forced to accompany a foreigner to said premises, we felt deep blush thinking about the opinion that was going to form our justice and Spanish culture. As of today, one of the reasons for our embarrassment has disappeared and the other is in the process of disappearing with the construction of the Palace of Justice, whose works are visibly advancing.”
With the expiration of the contract, the state built a new building in 1904 in Plaza Urquinaona, while the other building was acquired by the former Almacenes El Siglo to house the grocery section, although it disappeared with the fire declared on Christmas Day 1932. and that totally destroyed it.
Later, on the site of the defunct El Siglo stores, Jesús Goiri built La Bombonera, the Txiki-Ala, Barcelona’s first fronton, inaugurated on December 21, 1935, famous for its women’s matches.
In this way, the new Post Office was built in Plaza Urquinaona in the place where the Borràs Theater is currently located. But, this story is not over here yet.
