Editor’s Note
This story explores how Patricia Reznak, despite initial reluctance, returned to help lead her family’s iconic Madrid business, Grassy. It highlights the intersection of legacy, personal passion, and renewal within a historic enterprise.
An Unexpected Path to the Family Business
For a long time, joining Grassy, the family business that has been a Madrid emblem for three generations, was not in Patricia Reznak’s (Madrid, 66 years old) plans. However, she has revolutionized, alongside her siblings, the firm founded by her grandfather. Architecture has always been important to her: after all, one of Gran Vía’s most iconic buildings, Grassy—immortalized in a painting by Antonio López—bears the name of a business founded by her grandfather (an Italian born in Algeria) and continued by her father (a Czech who roamed Europe before settling in Madrid). She now leads its creative direction. This was the last thing she imagined when she graduated in architecture in the Madrid of La Movida, a period where she absorbed all the knowledge she could:
“It was a hilarious time. We went to the Penta club a lot because the bassist of Nacha Pop, Carlos Brooking, was my cousin.”
Back then, the family business didn’t interest her, but one day in the early 2000s, she told her father she wanted to pour her ideas into the jewelry division of a business whose main revenue source was watchmaking. Today, Grassy is a benchmark of sophistication and avant-garde design, with jewelry inspired by the architectural elements of the building central to its family saga.
Q&A with Patricia Reznak
Q: Were you an oddball in architecture school?
“No, because there was a lot of mix, a lot of diversity. It was already like that at the French Lycée where I studied as a child. It was also a time when we didn’t say where each of us came from. There was everything, and that enriches you immensely.”
Q: Your family is part of the most enduring advertising campaign in Spanish history. Do you remember seeing Antonio López painting the picture?
“Perfectly. We all remember seeing him from six in the morning on the traffic island, where there was a post he had tied his easel to, which is no longer there. My father went to talk to him a lot, but I don’t know about what. My father was very chatty.”
Q: Wasn’t he shocked when he saw you backtrack and bet on a career in jewelry?
“When I went to tell him I wanted to get into the business because I was out of work, my mother said: ‘Ugh! What a drag. You’ll be arranging flowers all day.’ But he covered his face with emotion. However, in the second conversation, he told me he would pay me an apprentice’s salary. I said: ‘Dad. I’m an architect. I have brutal training, you can’t possibly pay me that.’ The following months were very hard because we disagreed on everything. He was always very obsessed with saving, but we had to invest to improve many things, and on top of that, I had entered strong, with collaboration projects with Anthony Caro or Blanca Muñoz. We argued fiercely. And one day I told my mother I wasn’t sure about continuing because my relationship with my father was at risk. She confessed that he was desperate too.”
Q: And what happened?
“A friend told me: ‘Whenever I go to see my father, I take a Trankimazin [an anxiolytic].’ So that afternoon I took one and went to see him. He was also as smooth as silk, I don’t know what he took [laughs]. And from then on, everything started to soften.”
Q: Once you said you learned to polish diamonds thanks to a union and that they are your favorite stone. Explain.
“Well, the first part is true. I attended a great workshop in the Comisiones Obreras building on Paseo del Prado. Diamonds still seem like the most complex gems to me, but right now I’m more fascinated by paraiba, with that color like a David Hockney swimming pool.”
