Tour 1 - Plaça Catalunya to Sagrada Familia

The existing house, before Domènech i Montaner's intervention, was known as Casa Rocamora, owned by the couple Joan Mumbrú Bordas and Lluïsa Sagristà Figueres, who, in 1864, bought a plot of land from the Sociedad de Fomento del Ensanche, at the height of the urban development of the new Eixample, and commissioned the master builder Joaquim Sitjas to build a house. The house consisted of a semi-basement, a ground floor and two upper floors. A few years later, in 1884, the sons requested permission from the Town Hall to build an additional storey and to construct galleries on the rear façade of the building. In 1894, the Mumbrú Sitjà brothers sold the building to Antoni Morera Busó for 285,000 pesetas. Antoni Morera, who lived in Sant Gervasi, was the son of a family from Sant Feliu de Guíxols who, during the first half of the 19th century, emigrated to Puerto Rico, where they lived for a few years in the sugar cane trade. We could say that this was a family of Indianos who returned to Catalonia enriched and settled in Barcelona, investing part of their fortune in the purchase of the building on Passeig de Gràcia, on the corner of Consell de Cent. Promoters of the refurbishment: Antoni Morera died a widower in 1901, leaving a legacy to his niece, Francesca Morera Ortiz, who became the owner of the building on Passeig de Gràcia. She was the promoter of the refurbishment carried out by Montaner, giving absolute freedom to the architect to radically transform both the façade and the interior of the dwellings in the new style that was beginning to take hold in the Eixample, Modernisme. The sudden death of Francesca Morera on 10 December 1904 meant that the work had to be continued by her son, Dr. Albert Lleó i Morera, who had complete confidence in the architect and, together with him, decided to decorate each and every one of the flats with the intention that he, his wife Olinta Puiguriguer and their two children, Albert and Francesca, would live on the main floor, and that the rest of the flats would be rented out. This is why the building is still known today as the Lleó i Morera house (the son's surname), and not with the surname of the mother, Morera Ortiz, who, unfortunately, was unable to see the work completed and was unable to live in the main flat as she would have liked. The refurbishment of the building and the new decoration of all the interiors were completed at the end of 1905, and on 6 February 1906 Albert Lleó i Morera applied to Barcelona City Council for permission to rent the flats. This refurbishment and, in particular, the explosive decoration of the façade with sculptural reliefs, ceramics and wrought ironwork meant that the architect Domènech i Montaner won the Prize for the best building in 1906, awarded by Barcelona City Council. This recognition also gave him a great deal of prestige. The Lleó i Morera house remained in the hands of the Lleó Puiguriguer family until 1943. Changes of ownership: The Lleó i Morera house remained in the hands of the Lleó Puiguriguer family until 1943, when the doctor's widow and his two sons decided to sell the building to the insurance company Sociedad Mercantil Bilbao for three million pesetas.
Forty years later, the Mutualidad General de Previsión Social de la Abogacía de Madrid bought the building, which it subsequently sold to the Grupo Planeta. The fact that the Lleó i Morera family retained ownership for three generations favoured the maintenance of the building's interiors, as well as the delicate ornamental elements that had been made by master craftsmen using the most diverse materials. However, following the austere precepts of Noucentisme, which did not support the Art Nouveau style, several elements of the Lleó i Morera house were mutilated or radically destroyed. The latter is the case of the sculptures by Eusebi Arnau, some of which Salvador Dalí acquired to decorate the courtyard of his Theatre-Museum in Figueres. The pavilion: On the roof of the building is a small temple with a dome supported by a set of columns that has no specific function. In 1937, at the height of the Civil War, it was used as a machine-gun nest and was hit by crossfire, forcing its subsequent reconstruction. Later life and uses: As we have already mentioned, the Lleó Puiguriguer family lived in the main flat until 1943. The rest of the flats were rented accommodation. The commercial premises, on the mezzanine floor of the building, was rented to the famous photographer Pau Audouard Deglaire, known as the photographer of the 1888 Barcelona Universal Exhibition, who had his magnificent photographic studio on the mezzanine floor from 1905 to 1910. The mezzanine had the same layout as the upper floors of the building: an entrance from the neighbours' staircase and two lounges overlooking the Passeig de Gràcia, separated by a beautiful fireplace. However, the studio also had its own entrance from Passeig de Gràcia. It thus consisted of the mezzanine, a semi-basement and a storage room at the back, with an entrance hall, a large waiting room overlooking Passeig de Gràcia, a gallery where the portraits were taken and the studio office. The interior decoration followed the same aesthetic guidelines established in the rest of the building, under the artistic direction of Montaner and with the help of Adrià Gual (playwright, set designer and theatre director). The furniture was provided by Casa Busquets (Audouard, in addition to being a friend of the Busquets family, was their official photographer). The sculptures were by Eusebi Arnau. In 1943, the premises were rented by the Loewe leather goods trading company. After being the headquarters of the Círculo Artístico for a few years, we know that, in 1943, the premises were rented by the Loewe leather goods trading company. Its owner, Pau Loewe, asked the town council for permission to refurbish the premises. The architect who carried it out was Ramon Duran y Reynals, following the stylistic precepts of eliminating all modernist elements in favour of simplism. The history of the destruction of the ground floor has been severely criticised up to the present day.