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Without a doubt, the missing Casa Bonsoms is one of the great unknowns of the buildings that once disappeared from the sidewalk on the Besòs side of Plaza de Catalunya.
Located at former number 15, during its existence it was guarded by the Girona House on the mountain side and the Sicart building, which chamfered the corner on the sea side and was linked to the Sicart Houses on Fontanella Street.
It was owned by Climent Bonsoms i Tintoré, born in Tarragona, a businessman linked to the textile sector, who also traded, among others, wines and nuts, which he exported to America from the port of Tarragona. He had introduced Scandinavian living rooms in Spain (a comfortable and relaxed decoration of living rooms with simple structures and neutral colors).
The purchase of said lot was due to the fact that Bonsoms was aware of the sale of the lot by the Sicart family, since he was married to Teresa Sicart i Soler, who had inherited a large estate in Cuba.
In the beginning, Bonsoms had not only bought the plot of land in Plaza de Catalunya, but had acquired a small plot of land on calle Fontanella 3, which is why its possession embraced the Isidre Sicart i Torrents building at the rear. Later, that plot of land was acquired by Isidre Sicart to build his private house that was incomprehensibly demolished.
The Bonsoms-Sicart couple were parents Isidre Bonsoms and Sicart, who after his studies at the best European universities, became a bibliophile specialized in the work of Miguel de Cervantes.
Married to Mercedes Chacón i Silva-Bazán, daughter of a high aristocracy family, they take up residence in their parents’ building.
In 1913, Isidre Bonsoms is the victim of arteriosclerosis which seriously affects his health and moves to Mallorca by prescription, entering the Cartuja de Valldemossa, where he dies in 1922. His last will was to donate the Cervantina Library with more than 3,000 volumes in the Library of Catalonia.
With the departure of Isidre Bonsoms to Mallorca, the house was acquired by Pere Guerau Maristany and Oliver, Count of Lavern, who contacted the architect Enric Sagnier, to have it restructured so that the offices could be installed downstairs from Banco Español del Río de la Plata.
On September 30, 1918, after a renovation on the mezzanine floor carried out by the architect Sebastián Tortajada, the Army and Navy Circle was installed in the building.
Between 1929 and 1932, the building came to be managed by the Army and Navy Circle and had ground floors and six floors under a project in which the architect Adolf Florensa and the military engineer José Sans collaborated, leaving the property with six floors: mezzanine, four other floors and an attic, which allowed it to surpass its neighbors in the Girona and Sicart houses.
The building underwent a new change at the end of the 60s with the installation on the ground floor of the Plazza cafeteria and nightclub, which had a large terrace on the wide sidewalk in front of the premises. Later, the Don Jaime Art Nest was inaugurated in the basement of the building, where for a short time Jaime de Mora y Aragón, brother of Queen Fabiola of Belgium, played the piano.
At the end of the 1950s, a new neighbor arrived who initially started a new construction next to the building on the mountain side and which turned out to be the first El Corte Inglés building, inaugurated on Thursday, September 20, 1962.
The beginning of the expansion of El Corte Inglés was the beginning of the announced chronicle of the disappearance of the original Bonsoms building, an event that was completed in 1990.
