a cultural and social lighthouse for all Aragonese
The Aragonese Center of Barcelona, which has just been ceded to the Government of Aragon, was created in 1909, in the year of the Tragic Week, at the time when modernism brought together Gaudí, Picasso, Ramon Casas, Santiago Rusiñol and a great sculptor from Maella such as Pablo Gargallo. The idea was kneaded in various meetings and crystallized on January 3 of that year. The first president, rather fleeting, was Tirso Ortubia, who handed over his position to Hermenegildo Gorría Royán, a scholar in agricultural engineering, pharmacy, and architecture. From some debates the Board of Directors and the Advisory Board would emerge, and the statutes were drawn up.
The foundation was made in style: a great banquet was held for 800 people at the Teatro Condal and at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and in the afternoon a festival of jota and rondalla was organized. At the end of the year, the Aragonese Center of Barcelona –which was constantly changing venues- had 1,300 members and some dissidents, who would found the Barcelona Workers’ Center in March 1914. The Aragonese of Barcelona had a great personality and an indestructible bond with their land: when Costa got sick, the board of directors, worried, she corresponded with her relatives. And a little later they thought about the need to have their own building. A piece of land measuring 1,240 meters was acquired, which had previously been the Valdonzella convent, and an architect was sought: the chosen one was Miguel Ángel Navarro (1883-1956), son of Félix Navarro, who moved to Barcelona to see the space and He conceived a luxurious and ambitious building whose works began on May 31, 1914.
A piece of land measuring 1,240 meters was acquired, which had previously been the Valdonzella convent, and an architect was sought: the chosen one was Miguel Ángel Navarro (1883-1956), son of Félix Navarro, who moved to Barcelona to see the space and He conceived a luxurious and ambitious building whose works began on May 31, 1914.
The symbols and the Aragonese passion were not belittled. And they took three stones from each province: one from the Roman wall near the Ebro, in Zaragoza, next to the convent of the Holy Sepulchre; another from the Andaquilla tower, in Teruel; and another from Huesca, collected from the old city wall in the Montearagón ring road. Navarro’s effort consisted of basements, a ground floor, two distributed floors, and would have a theater, the Goya, for 1,000 spectators, which would become one of the most important in the city through which actresses such as Raquel would pass, among others. Meller and Margarita Xirgu. Logically there was a lot of Aragonese presence: among them, the Zaragoza hero Basilio Paraíso, a central figure in the 1908 Spanish-French Exhibition, was responsible for decorating the polychrome crystals of the towns of Aragon with his company La Veneciana.
The project had other support: the Zaragoza town hall, of which José Salarrullana de Dios was mayor, succeeded in granting 8,000 pesetas (a little less than 50 euros today) for eight years. The headquarters, finally, was inaugurated on September 7, 1916 and made a chamfer or linked two streets: Torres Amar and Poniente, which in 1923 would be renamed Joaquín Costa. Nothing more and nothing less. A large delegation came from Zaragoza where, in addition to the authorities, two great chroniclers stood out: José Blasco Ijazo, the author of ‘Aquí Zaragoza’, and Juan José Lorente, the man who discovered the young violinist Simón Tapia Colman in the countryside. The event was chaired by the mayor of Barcelona and Zaragoza. The meal took place at the Mundial Palace and 500 guests attended. There were jacks, bulls, an art exhibition was organized (with works by Julio García Condoy, Mariano Barbasán, Joaquín Pallarés, Gascón de Gotor, Salvador Gisbert, the aforementioned Gargallo and Marín Bagüés, among others) and a special issue of the ‘Bulletin ‘ to the event.
From that moment, with illusions and tensions, the great task of the Center will begin until the Civil War. And politics was always present and even gave rise to numerous debates that affected not only the Board of Directors but several presidents. The same ‘Bulletin’, which is like a record of all the ideological ups and downs, was always the banner of tensions and also of unquestionable love for the land that had been left behind. The painter Joaquín Sorolla himself published a letter in it. And, as a curiosity, Ramón y Cajal sent another epistle to that house of his countrymen in a foreign land.
After the war, the statutes were reformed, the Agrupación Montañeros de Aragón was created and a collaboration agreement was selected with the ‘Fernando el Católico’ Institution, which has been maintained until today.
The Center would also be the setting for the dialectical battles of Gaspar Torrente, director of the magazine ‘El Ebro’, of Isidro Comas Macarulla, who was the promoter of the ‘Tertulias Aragonesas’, held every Thursday, and of Julio Calvo Alfaro, director of the magazine of the Aragonese Regionalist Union. At the same time there were constant changes of presidents and an intense menu of activities: a hiking group was created; the Orfeón ‘Goya’, with 82 male and female voices, directed by Mariano Mayral (he came to perform at the Liceo), the Floral Games of the Crown of Aragon were born, and the different sports teams emerged. And it is said that Alfonso XIII, on a visit to Pueblo Español, attended a recital by Jotero José Oto, with the Orfeón Goya and the rondalla from the Centro Aragonés.
The immediate postwar years were not easy. But around 1952, with the arrival of Antonio Irache to the presidency, the panorama changed: The painter and illustrator, from Zaragoza and resident in Barcelona, Guillermo Pérez Baylo, created a painting and drawing studio, and made numerous murals that can still be seen. The statutes were reformed, the Agrupación Montañeros de Aragón was created and a collaboration agreement was used with the ‘Fernando el Católico’ Institution, which has been maintained until today.
In 1959 the Center’s golden anniversary was celebrated. Subsequently, the clubs multiplied, and in 1966 the Peña ‘Huesca’ was born. Over the years, the Aragonese Center would be the meeting point for people close to the spirit of ‘Andalán’ and of the new times: historians, journalists, writers lived together. And it has never stopped holding artistic exhibitions, strengthening and enriching its impressive library of more than 14,000 volumes (it has had an absolute reference in Cruz Barrio), organizing presentations of books by Aragonese authors (Tomeo, Pisón, Grasa , Melero, Verón Gormaz, the list is immense…), above all, to organize series of conferences and concerts, and to host a lot of groups that find there a permanent connection with Aragon and with their own identity. The Goya Theater, managed by the Focus group, was remodeled and opened in 2008.
In the 2009 centenary, two murals by Jorge Gay were installed and a grand gala was held led by Luis del Val and Carmen París. The new president Jesús Félez found himself in an untenable situation and has sought the help of the Government of Aragon, which now has a showcase for exchange and coexistence and cultural impulse if he dares to be creative, generous and dynamic, and not he allows himself to be overwhelmed by the weight of the bureaucracy.