Jardins Muñoz Ramonet, A Green Oasis in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi
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Jardins Muñoz Ramonet, photo by Vicente Zambrano González courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
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Jardins Muñoz Ramonet, photo courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
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Jardins Muñoz Ramonet, photo by Júlia Arnau courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Julio Muñoz Ramonet, born in Barcelona in the year 1916, was a successful businessman. After making his fortune in the textile industry, he acquired a luxurious property located at Calle Muntaner 282, in the district of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.
When he died at the age of 75, Muñoz left the mansion, the extensive art collection contained within it, and the surrounding gardens to a foundation that would carry his name. The Julio Muñoz Ramonet Foundation exists under the aegis of the City of Barcelona, and is dedicated to promoting and disseminating culture.
However, the history of the property is anything but straightforward; it’s filled with as much drama and scandal as a noir novella.
Photo by Vicente Zambrano González courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
The Beginning: Building the House and Gardens
The Julio Muñoz Ramonet Gardens (previously called the Can Fabra Gardens) have been around longer than the house itself; they were designed the same year that Muñoz was born, in 1916, by famed French landscape architect Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier at the behest of Fernando Fabra i Puig, the Second Marquis of Alella. The Marquis was a businessman and industrial engineer, as well as a politician: he briefly served as the mayor of Barcelona, between May 1922 and September 1923.
The design of the gardens represented an innovation in Spanish landscape architecture at the time. Forestier, who later went on to design gardens on Montjuïc mountain and in Guinardó Park, is credited with introducing the concept of the “Mediterranean garden” to the country. The style draws on influences from both Arabic gardens and the naturally occurring landscape; the central focus of this particular green space was a rectangular pond, surrounded by pergolas and rose bushes, and made extensive use of native foliage.
Jardins Muñoz Ramonet, photo by Canaan (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
The following year, in 1917, a house was built on the estate grounds by renowned Catalan architect Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia, who was also responsible for the Sacred Heart church at the Tibidabo, the building that currently houses the Museum of Modernism in Barcelona, as well as a number of other prominent local landmarks. The rectangular four-story mansion was built in the noucentista style that was popular at the time; it included two imposing towers, as well as a triple arcade featuring Renaissance-inspired arches and carved stone scrolls at the house’s entrance. The rest of the frontal façade is decorated with balconies and a gallery on the upper floor; the English-style courtyard that surrounds the building is enclosed by wrought-iron fences. The tower house facing Carrer de l'Avenir was built for the Marquis’ sister, Inés Fabra i Puig, who lived with him.
The design was intentionally modeled after French bourgeois hôtels particuliers. Not to be confused with a hotel, the term denotes a large, luxurious urban building inhabited by one family and their servants, similar to a British townhouse. A mansion such as this served two functions: besides providing a comfortable living space, it was also an intentional display of wealth and power.
While smaller houses on Carrer de Marià Cubí that were built on the property for the Marquis’ adult children were eventually sold off, the main structure is one of the few single-family homes from the early 20th-century that remains largely intact today. Nearly all of the structural and decorative elements that were originally designed by Sagnier i Villavecchia are still visible, having been carefully preserved and maintained over the years.
"Seated Woman" by Josep Dunyach 1919, photo by Vicente Zambrano González courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Art in the Gardens
The art works that adorn the Julio Muñoz Ramonet Foundation Gardens have also been carefully preserved. The park entrance on Caller de Muntaner offers access to the first tier, or lower garden, whose centerpiece is the pond featuring the sculpture by Josep Dunyach from 1919, titled Seated Woman. There is also a pergola decorated with leafy trellises. And if you turn towards the direction of the house, you’ll be greeted by the Allegory of Spring and Allegory of Summer statues by Josep Cañas, created in 1945.
Turning right will lead you past a statue called Barcelona, by Josep Dunyach (1947). Like the aforementioned works, this statue is of the figure of a graceful woman, in this case intended to represent the spirit of the city.
Following this path will lead you to the upper garden, located between the palace and the tower. The pond that stands in this part of the property is the flower bed turned swimming pool turned pond; it is now covered in water lilies and flanked by two pergolas. Between these two structures are six more notable sculptures. One, by Vicenç Navarro, is called Diana the Huntress (1928); the five remaining works are by Josep Dunyach. These are Crouching Woman, 1924; Woman Leaning on Wheat, 1925; Seated Female Figure, 1928; Nude, 1937; and Standing Nude Combing Her Hair, 1940. At the edge of the pond, opposite the tower, is a group of sculptures also by Josep Dunyach, called Confidences on the Beach (1934).
"Confidences on the Beach" by Josep Dunyach 1934, of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
The House that Profiteering Built (Well, Bought)
The Second Marquis of Alella died in 1944. Julio Muñoz Ramonet and his brother Álvaro purchased the property from the Marquis’ granddaughters in 1945; Julio would later purchase his brother’s share in 1952, making him the sole owner of the property.
Julio started his career as a low-level worker in the El Barato warehouses, but acquired both money and influence when he undertook espionage missions for Franco during and after the Spanish Civil War. Thanks to his connections to the regime, he was able to make a lucrative living in the contraband trade. And as the state tightly controlled Spanish cotton production, Julio was able to acquire companies for rock-bottom prices, thereby building an empire. He ultimately ended up being the owner of several textile companies, including the Unión Industrial Algodonera and the Can Batlló factory, as well as the El Siglo and El Águila warehouses, and other businesses related to trade and insurance.
Muñoz lived in the mansion with his wife and four daughters, the house and grounds a clear symbol of the family’s successful upward mobility. His mother, Florinda Ramonet Sindreu, lived in the tower house on Carrer de l’Avenir.
The gardens were augmented by Joan Mirambell i Ferran in 1956. Image courtesy of Fundació Julio Muñoz Ramonet.
Renovations to the House and Gardens
Before moving into the house, Muñoz made a few renovations, the most notable being the changes to the gardens. The outdoor spaces were augmented by Joan Mirambell i Ferran in 1956, who was charged with remodeling a number of gardens and other spaces around Catalunya from the 1930s through the 1950s. He added uneven surfaces to the gardens, bringing them closer to the house; the design now features several terraced levels connected by decorative staircases. Mirambell also replaced the flowerbed on the side garden with a swimming pool, changed the orientation of the pond and relocated the pergola.
The family lived on the property happily for years, however, following the textile crisis in the 1960s, Muñoz was pursued by lawsuits and debt collectors. It came to light that not all of his financial dealings had been exactly aboveboard, and he was deeply in debt. In 1986, the Audiencia Nacional accused Muñoz of fraud; he fled to Switzerland, leaving the house in temporary control of his children.
A Decades-Long Legal Scandal
"The Annunciation" by El Greco, is one of the pieces recovered by the Foundation in its lawsuit against Muñoz’ heirs.
Muñoz died in relative obscurity in Switzerland, in 1991. This marked the beginning of a bitter dispute between his daughters and the Barcelona City Council regarding who legally had rights to the land, the house and its contents.
Some said that Muñoz intended to leave everything to the city, but that his daughters hid the will, which he had made in 1988; the daughters claimed that the will was lost, and their father had intended the property to stay in the family.
The dispute went on for 15 years, until the City Council eventually won, claiming as part of its case a letter it had received in1994 from German painter Bernd Walter. After failing to collect on a debt owed to him by the Muñoz estate, he wrote a furious missive to the Barcelona City Council, explaining the daughters’ deception and his knowledge of it. The final decision was ratified by the Spanish Supreme Court in 2012, and the city took possession of the estate the following year.
This meant that Barcelona inherited the gardens, the palace, the annexed building on Carrer de l'Avenir where Muñoz’ mother had lived, as well as the luxurious furniture, jewelry and the art collection. Muñoz’ art collection in particular is not only valuable, but also of historic significance as it contains impressive examples of Spanish, Flemish and French Baroque painting; Catalan Gothic and Romanesque painting; antiques and excavation glass from Ibiza and miniatures; and contemporary Catalan paintings.
However, the Court’s decision wasn’t the end of the story. A number of works of art were found to be missing when the City Council finally took possession of the property; it was said that two large trailers spirited them away in 1991, soon after Julio’s death. Most of these pieces were later recovered—for example, The Apparition of the Virgin of Pilar by Goya and The Annunciation by El Greco, which have been on loan to the MNAC since 2017—but it was an agonizingly slow process, and one which is still ongoing.
A 2020 judicial investigation recovered 90 of the 106 inventoried missing works of art, and these represent only a fraction of the approximately 475 belongings that Muñoz’ daughters were found to have hidden away in their residences when they were raided by the Guardia Civil. These 90 works are due to finally be turned over to the Foundation in 2025.
Photo by Vicente Zambrano González courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
The Palace and The Gardens Today
Upon taking control of the property, the City Council made a few renovations to the gardens, including converting the former swimming pool into a pond, refurbishing the lighting and irrigation systems, restoring the access doors on the streets of Muntaner, Marià Cubí and Avenir, and preserving some of the historic vegetation in the gardens, such as the towering old maple trees. The three terraces include a wide diversity of species of flora and fauna, including frogs, butterflies, bird species such as herons, and plants like white wisteria, Montpellier maple, laurel, avocados, acanthus, hackberry, sweet clover, Japanese cherries and magnolias.
The gardens today are a quiet oasis that have been open to the public since 2016; entry is free of charge, every day of the year from 10:00 to 20:00. The walls surrounding the gardens help to isolate the inside from the busy streets that surround them; they’re not nearly as crowded as Barcelona’s more centrally-located outdoor spaces, such as the Parc de la Ciutadella, offering a welcome dose of quiet for visitors looking to escape the urban crush. They can be reached by taking the FGC to the Gràcia or Plaça Molina stops, or via bus or tram.
Guided tours* are available if you’d like to see the inside of the mansion, which is now known as the Palace of the Marquis of Alella, or the Casa Muñoz Ramonet; both it and gardens are registered as a Cultural Asset of Local Interest (BCIL) in the Inventory of Catalan Cultural Heritage. The inside of the house is well worth a visit: it’s a colorful, lavish, exquisitely preserved time capsule representing the height of early 20th-century opulence. The main hall, salon, library, guest rooms, billiard room, even a cinema room—installed during the remodeling in the 1950s—are covered in lush carpets, tapestries, stained glass, chandeliers, paintings, frescos and with precious pieces of art and period furniture all around.
Aside from functioning as a bright window to the past, it’s also the headquarters of the Julio Muñoz Ramonet Foundation—provision for which had been made in Muñoz’ recovered will—whose stated aim looks towards the future. The foundation seeks to find the common ground between art, science, technology and the needs of the community, and to apply its findings to answering the challenges inherent within a modern urban society.
*Tours of the inside are temporarily paused, but will most likely begin again in summer 2025. The gardens are still open.
