Corberó 🇪🇸

"Of course, Corberó". The slogan was as resounding as the company: in 1973 it had 2,500 employees and in 1976 it was producing up to 3,000 units a day from its factories in Esplugues de Llobregat and Castellbisbal. Everything had started in 1930 in a workshop on Gelabert Street in Barcelona where Pere Corberó Trepat manufactured gas stoves for the municipal network. After the war, Corberó took advantage of the arrival of bottled butane to move into stoves and heaters, and in 1960 he founded Corberó, S.A. and built the Esplugues factory. In the 60s, 70s and early 80s it produced washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, stoves, ovens and heaters, and its headquarters at 194-206 Aragó Street was one of the most recognizable corporate buildings in the Eixample.

In the official history of the company, air conditioning does not appear, and we have not found catalogs or period advertisements for Corberó air conditioners. The company was, above all, the great Catalan brand of kitchen and laundry, and its relationship with cold was limited to refrigerators. That is why we include it here more as a clarification than as a manufacturer: when a “Corberó” split appears in a store today, it is a product of the modern era of the brand, not of historic Corberó.

After several years of crisis, in 1988 the Swedish multinational Electrolux absorbed the company with a strong financial injection from the Generalitat to guarantee the continuity of production. That same year the Aragó building became the headquarters of the EADA business school. In 1996 Electrolux sold the Esplugues and Castellbisbal facilities to the Italian Iar Sirtal, which closed them in 2000 leaving hundreds of workers out of work; it was the end of Catalan manufacturing. Electrolux, however, retained the brand, and even in 2024 it sold Corberó products made in its Sagunto plant with headquarters in Castelldefels, including low‑cost climate control devices that carry a surname with almost a century of history.

Pending verification

If Corberó manufactured or marketed air conditioning before 1988 (there is no evidence); who manufactures the current Corberó climate control equipment.

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us.