Big cities like Barcelona hide surprises. You only need to walk around with your eyes open and your gaze raised to come across curious, striking features. One such surprise stands beside Plaça de les Glòries, behind the Museu del Disseny building, popularly known as the stapler. It is at the junction of Badajoz and Bolivia streets. It is an enormous water tank shaped like an open cardboard box, and on its four sides you can still see the logo of the factory it supplied: a Star of David. The tank, built from concrete, is so well made that you can even see the shape of the corrugated cardboard.
Looking closely at the logo, we can read “Envases Universal J. Rius SA, Barcelona” around the Star of David. But let us go back. In the 1940s, the Cartonera Española factory was founded. In the late 1950s, this factory changed its name to Envases y Cartones Universal, and later to Cartonería Española José Rius. José Rius Muntané was a businessman proud of his Jewish roots and, despite the authorities' disapproval of all things Jewish at the time, he used the Star of David not only in the factory's logo but also in its advertising and letterheads.
Rius was one of the surnames adopted by Jewish converts in the Middle Ages
The cardboard factory thrived until 15 October 1973, when a fierce fire caused by a sawing machine killed three employees and left the company in ruins. According to reports at the time, the fire caused losses of 200 million pesetas and left 142 workers unemployed. The only survivor was the water tank, originally intended to store water in case of fire. It still stands today.
