The Visit of a Great-Granddaughter. Memories Before Kellogg’s… 

By: Ferran Garcés 

The legacy of Bellesguard has about 2000 years of history. To learn about it, one must refer to books and scholarly articles. However, this past also has less than a hundred years, meaning that sometimes we learn history from people who are still alive or people related to some of its protagonists and more recent events. 

On Sunday, March 30th, one of these people was visited: Mercè Figueras Mestres, great-granddaughter of Maria Sagués, the head of a family deeply rooted in the cultural environment of modernism, the Figueras. Proof of this is that she was the one who hired Antoni Gaudí to build the Bellesguard tower in 1900. Gaudí and Maria’s children coincided at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc, a center founded, among others, by influential artists such as the Llimona brothers, Joan and Josep, Antoni Utrillo, and Alexandre de Riquer. 

In the photograph on the left, we see the ancestor, and in the photograph on the right, the descendant. The location of both photographs is the same, one of the staircases on the facade of the stables. Maria is surrounded by some of her children. Mercè is accompanied by two friends, Marta and Carme. 

With Mercè, they talked about different details of the tower but also about a book written by one of her relatives: The Figueras Family. The Lords of Bellesguard, by Josep Mº Figueras i Bas. Among other topics, the subject of her ancestors’ business came up, a pasta business founded in 1820 on Sant Ramon Street. A little later, in 1842, they moved to a new store located at Rambla de Sant Josep, 11, corner with Petxina Street. In 1902, at the same time Gaudí was building the Bellesguard Tower, they renovated the store with a splendid decoration that is still preserved (see: the mosaics of Casa Figueras). 

The business lasted until 1986, when this location was bought and transformed into the current Escribà pastry shop. Before the acquisition, however, Mercè’s ancestors’ company had grown and opened more establishments, and, according to the Figueras book, “it seems that it was from 1960 that the Figueras factory on Mallorca Street, located in the Passatge de l’Hort dels Velluters, began to industrially manufacture its two new star products, namely Krips and Maït.” 

Unfortunately, the new products were short-lived. In 1978, a foreign company called Kellogg’s was established in Spain. To do this, the American giant absorbed the small local company. However, a year earlier, during 1977, the commercial activity had the combined name of Kellogg Figueras, S.A. Mercè remembers it very well. She explained it to us herself, serving as an example of how Bellesguard Tower combines “book” history and “personal” history… 

We are very honored to have received the visit of Mercè Figueras and to relive memories of Bellesguard Tower’s past. It was a very emotional visit and we hope to see each other again very soon. Surely we will travel back in time once more… 

To conclude, we want to remember that Mercè is the founder of a school located not far from Bellesguard Tower, the Traç art school. She founded it fifty years ago, and, precisely, next Saturday, April 26th, is the celebration party, with activities, workshops, popular lunch, and more surprises. This year, the director of the school is Mercè’s daughter. As we can see, the entrepreneurial and cultural spirit of the Figueras family is still very much alive. Great-grandmother Maria would be pleased. 

Notes 

(1) Figueras i Bas, Josep Mª (2016) The Figueras Family. The Lords of Bellesguard, self-published work, Barcelona. 

(2) Ibíd., p. 343 (In the book, the names appear written as Krips and Maït. However, in the advertising of the time, we read “Crisp and Máit”. The photos of the ads are on page 426. 

One of the other locations still remains but in worse condition, the store at Carme Street, 11. See: “Branch of the Antigua Casa Figueras”