Herbolario Agricolia is on Calle Comtal 10 in Barcelona

The herbalist Agricolia has been dedicated to selling nutricional and natural health products for over 90 years. It sits in the egg yolk of the city at number 10 Calle Comtal. This narrow side street comes off the busy, chain store lined avenue Portal de l'Àngel. Being right in the centre, Juan Martinet's shop keeps company with plenty of tapas bars and knickknack shops like Tiger and Wolala.

Dotted between these though are a few other independents like Agricolia, that have managed to resist this age of chains and big names. A few I can mention are La Casa del Bacalao, a salt cod specialist next door at number 8, the cheese shop Simó at number 4 (which by the way, boasts over 200 cheeses in its range) and the Fondevila cured meats shop just up the street.

In the UK where I was born and raised, there isn't really an exact equivalent of a herbalists shop (called herbolario in Spanish). What you find here under one roof, you would find shared between a health food shop and a pharmacy back in the UK, so they're quite unique really. Agricolia stocks products for different dietary requirements, health supplements, alternative treatments, and natural versions of everyday products such as shampoos and moisturisers.

Originally, you would have been able to smell the products being sold on these premises, as long ago, a bakery was on this plot of land. Juan became connected to Agricolia through marriage when it was a herbalist and being managed by his then mother-in-law. From this time, Juan tells me that he fell in love with botany and was inspired so much that he began to study plant science more seriously.

This herbolario must be one of the cutest Modernista facades I've illustrated so far. Like the Casa del Bacalao next door, it has a doll's house quality about it. Painted a perky canary yellow, it's shop front's dinky windows curve off from the street to meet a small white door that's decorated with botanical stained glass motifs. Inside it is very cosy too. Top to bottom and all the way around are white wooden shelves trimmed with that canary yellow and filled with the latest health products. I must say, that yellow really does have an uplifting effect when you're in the space. As I talked with Juan, it emerged that he himself had been responsible for the Modernista aesthetic of the shop. It turns out that he is a little obsessed with that colour too.

Inside, I'm drawn to the main feature of the space, a set of vintage enamel Berkel weighing scales that sit on the wooden table at the front. They originate with the herbalist and are still used by Juan and his team. Running around the top of the white cabinets are small, brightly coloured stained glass panels illustrating flowers and plants that have medicinal properties - lilies, wisteria, iris - all of them are Juan's creations, as are the panels that decorate parts of the facade.

I get the impression that this little place as been a labour of love for Juan. His affection for the Modernista style, which used nature as it's central element, marry happily with his interest in botany.

Outside, the porch entrance is paved with olive green tiles and its ceiling is decorated with yellow stylised stained glass flowers and blue petals. Both the glass panels that skirt around the top of the space inside, and those outside on the porch, which are also Juan's creations, have been stained using enamel. Traditionally, stained glass would have been leaded, and metallic oxides such as copper and cobalt would have been added to glass in its molten state to stain it. You can see this traditional method of staining and decorating glass in the floral motifs running along the top of the entrance, and those of the door itself. These pieces are the work of a contemporary stained glass artist and Juan's inspiration for his own pieces. On the lower parts of the entrance doors, Juan has created two panels showing a seed sower at work.
They're charming images and compliment the rest of the facade nicely.

The result is this bijou neo-modernista space.

Stitched Painting of the Herbalist Agricolia