Bar Torino

Bar Torino was a renowned hotel complex that is found on Passeig de Gracia no. 18 of Barcelona. The Bar Torino was built in 1902 and featured modern style decorations making it the most luxurious bar in the town of Barcelona. This was especially attributed to its modern style of decoration.

Antoni Gaudi, as one of the architects of Bar Torino, played a major role in realizing the artistic nature of the bar. He contributed to the designing of the dining room. He designed the ornamentation of the Arabic Hall and built it with pressed and varnished cardboard tiles which entirely imitated tiles and mosaics manufactured by Hermenegild Miralles' company.

The building stood out under the planning of Ricard de Capmany, a decorator who had contributed to some of the best architectural designs of the time. Wood, metal and glass were the main materials used to build Bar Torino. Gaudi used the wood panelling while the pressboard was used to varnish the walls specifically in the Arab Room. The slap materials were supplied by Hermeneaild Miralles' company. The door jambs were sculptured into a representation of a woman holding a glass in the hand while the stained glass was worked in bronze and metal.

The Bar Torino was commissioned by a businessman of Italian origin Falminio Mezzalama. He contracted Antonio Gaudi as one of the contracted to design a café on the corner of two main streets of Eixample. These streets are the Passeig de Gracia and Gran Via. Upon finishing the work, the building was named Café Torino and consequently set up as a setting for the Vermouth Martini and Rossi. Even though Antoni Gaudi did touch alcohol as he was a strict vegetarian, this didn't prevent him from contributing to the designing of the bar to become the masterpiece of the time.

The completed project was opened in 1902 to house the Martini and Rossi products in Barcelona making it the first vermouth place in Barcelona. The bars name, Torino was in honour of the home town where vermouth was produced. However, Bar Torino closed in 1911 to 1916 when part of the front was dismantled. The part was taken to Carrer dels Escudellers where it was refurbished by Ricard de Capmany and subsequently renamed the Grill Room.

Currently, the Bar Torino is the modernist place known as Grill Room Bar Thonet with part of the original decorations done by Gaudi and the wood bending techniques of Michael Thonet among other decorates from renowned artists still present. In 2018, the bar under the ownership of Albert Ventura and Albert Taberner reinvented the original decoration while the designs of the traditional glass and wood enclosures stand out. Besides, the interior also retained its modernist character with curved shapes and wall tiles.