Barcelona is a city full of the most surreal scenes. Just today I met a woman who kept a live white rabbit in her handbag, for example. Yesterday I saw – defiantly flouting the new extra harsh cycling laws – a little boy cycling along Rambla de Catalunya with a man who must have been in his 70s standing up on the basket rack behind him – Castellers style. I wish I’d got photos of both but I was too busy laughing.
Another Barcelona twist on the everyday, however, can be seen in the architecture. Often, when a building has been demolished a collage of leftover bathroom, kitchen and bedroom walls is left, forming an odd façade to the neighbouring block. I know you see this in other cities as well, but in Barcelona it really is part of the landscape – perhaps because of the rate of demolition going on. The Raval district, needless to say, is a veritable exhibition of it.
It can be funny (especially when sinks and shower heads are still attached) and sad, ugly and strangely beautiful all at the same time. There is apparently a word for the phenomenon in Catalan - but I'm still trying to find out what it is... if anyone knows, please tell me. There are also whole Flickr groups devoted to the phenomenon, although without knowing the name for it, I've only found a couple of images: here's one.
A dead rabbit would have been more surreal.
Posted by: John | Oct 26, 2007 at 10:19
Uh, i'm in the flickr group and posted a picture about the black arrow wall (i think it's near the Macba area).
Barcelona is a nice city but i expected more. After a while there's nothing to do. It never happens in cities like London, Paris or New York.
Posted by: Margherita | Oct 26, 2007 at 11:25
here's the demolition flickr group i subscribe to. it's pretty awesome: http://flickr.com/groups/demolitionart/
Posted by: nat | Oct 27, 2007 at 05:14
I love this aspect of Barcelona's old town. I wrote a lengthy piece on this practice of punching holes in the fabric of the city. It's so dense there it creates an effect I've rarely seen elsewhere.
http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2006/02/punching_holes_.html
Posted by: Dan Hill | Nov 08, 2007 at 05:28