Editing Barcelona (section)

== BAR CEL ONA - Personal Names ==

Hey Couchsurfers, if you haven't seen these places and don't know these names, then you haven't been to Barcelona. :DDDD

=== Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (1852-1926) ===

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet was born in 1852 in Reus to a family of coppersmiths from Riudoms. The smallest of five brothers, he moved to Barcelona in 1873 to study architecture, which he finished four years later. It is said that on awarding him his degree, the Director of the School of Architecture, Elies Rogent, muttered “Who knows whether we have given the degree to a madman or a genius: only time will tell”.

His first professional assignment was to design the new buildings of the textile cooperative of Mataró (1878), for which Gaudí conceived unusual catenary arches of wood and a giant bronze bee (symbol of the cooperative). In the same year, he designed a glass and crystal ware cabinet decorated with wrought-iron, mahogany and marquetry for a Catalan glove manufacturer, Esteban Cornellá, to display his products at the Universal Exhibition of Paris. The display cabinet seduced Eusebi Güell, an industrialist, aristocrat and rising politician, who was to become the patron of the young architect. Gaudí’s first commission for Güell was to design the furniture of the pantheon that the Marquis of Comillas, Güell’s all-powerful father-in-law, possessed on the outskirts of Santander. This assignment was followed by another, a pergola decorated with globes and hundreds of glass pieces. From then on his career and his work, which in the course of time became one of the most famous symbols of Barcelona, were intimately linked to the Güell family. 
In 1883 the Church commissioned him to build the Sagrada Família, which was to become the great work of his life, and in which he invested all the efforts of his last years. This gradual concentration on the great expiatory temple ran parallel to the consolidation of a fervent Catholicism, an aspect which had not been apparent in the young Gaudí. In his maturity, the great Catalan architect was known to be a frugal and solitary man who devoted all his energy to the profession through which he expressed his two great passions: Christianity and Catalan nationalism. His obstinate defense of Catalan identity even led to his arrest by the police in 1924 on Catalan National day (11th September), for refusing to submit to an officer who ordered him to speak in Spanish.

On 7th June 1926, Gaudí was hit by a tram when he was crossing the Gran Via. Initially on his admission the staff of the hospital, who struggled to save his life for three days, took him for a beggar because of his humble attire.

=== La Rambla ===
The original Rambla was a wide, rambling path that ran down the southern limits of the city parallel to the medieval wall built by king James 1st in the 13th century. One hundred years later a new wall would surround the Raval and leave the Rambla wall enclosed, without its theoretical defensive function. However, the wall gates (Santa Anna, Portaferrissa, Boqueria, Trentaclaus and Framenors) did not disappear and continued to be meeting points for open air markets, or were “recycled” into new buildings, such as a cannon factory. “Rambla”, in Arabic, means “watercourse” and this is precisely what it was: a torrent, known as the Cagalell, which had become both the sewer and the moat of the city. In the 16th century, the first religious centres (Convent de Sant Josep, 1586), schools (Estudis Generals, 1536) and theatres (Teatro de la Santa Creu, 1597) began to appear on the southern bank. Thus the 17th-century Rambla had the city wall on one side and churches and convents on the other side, in what is now the Raval district. In the late 18th century, military engineers under Juan M. Cermeño transformed this wide ditch into an elegant avenue, channelling the stream under ground and clearing plots for new, aligned buildings.

There is only one Rambla, but each section has been given a different name: going up from the port you will walk along Rambla de Santa Mònica, Rambla dels Caputxins, Rambla de Sant Josep, Rambla dels Estudis and Rambla de Canaletes. These names are not gratuitous but correspond to the monasteries, churches or buildings that stood beside the avenue that began to take shape as the ditch was filled in. In 1768 old king James’s wall was demolished and work began on the construction of some of the most emblematic buildings, such as Palau de la Virreina and Palau Moja, and Casa March de Reus (built by Joan Soler i Faneca in 1780) which is left behind down the Rambla, at number 8. The last great transformation of the Rambla was in the 19th century, when the disentailment of the church’s property as a result of liberal policies led to the disappearance of most monasteries that stood on it. They were replaced by new streets (Carrer Ferran), public spaces (Plaça Reial), markets (La Boqueria) and buildings that have become emblematic (Liceu). The Rambla is currently the best showcase of the city, of its history and of the life of its citizens, as was described by the Catalan writer Josep Plà in one of his works: “The Rambla is a marvel. It is one of the few streets of Barcelona in which I feel fully at ease. There are always enough people to meet someone you know, but there are always enough people to go unnoticed if you wish”.

=== Sagrada Família ===
Going up Carrer Sicilia and turning right at Carrer Mallorca we reach the TEMPLE EXPIATORI DE LA SAGRADA FAMÍLIA. (EXPIATORY TEMPLE OF THE HOLY FAMILY). Gaudí was a unique architect in his time, and one of the few in the history of architecture to have had a commission that lasted a lifetime -in fact, a commission that outlived him. The Sagrada Família is a work of great brilliance and ambition and of giant aspirations. The origin of the Expiatory Church of the Holy Family dates back to 1869 when Josep M. Bocabella, founder of the Josephite Association dedicated to fostering devotion to Saint Joseph, had the idea of building a church to honour the Holy Family (Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ). Bocabella bought a site and in 1882 started to build a church in a Neo-Gothic style with the aim of creating a cathedral for the poor, to counteract the anticlerical radicalism that was beginning to spread among the lower classes of Barcelona (the city anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin had pointed out as the most revolutionary in all of Europe). However, in the course of time the church took on a very different meaning as conservative Catalan nationalists began to identify with the project. The initial design of the church was by Francesc de Paula Villar, but the lack of understanding between the owner and the architect led to a radical change of plans. Villar was dismissed and replaced by Antoni Gaudí, who finished the crypt and presented a new, far more ambitious plan: to build a cathedral with a great, central, 170-metre-high tower dedicated to the Saviour. Pious Mr. Bocabella was thrilled with the idea and Gaudí plunged into the project. Progress, however, was not easy. In 1891 he started work on the Nativity façade: thirty-four years later, in 1925, Gaudí had finished only the first of the four bell towers that crown this façade. The other three were finished after the death of the architect.

The Sagrada Família may be considered a Bible in stone, owing to the great number of Christian symbols that Gaudí placed on its façades. These include, or rather will include once finished, Adam and Eve, the Twelve Apostles, all the episodes of the life of Jesus and all the main symbols of the Old Testament. The Sagrada Família is, indeed, a monument that could be used as an introductory crash-course to Catholic religion. The importance of this building is not, however, exclusively religious. It is also the “book of Gaudí”, the clearest lesson of his way of building, a kind of testament in which Gaudí applied all the structural solutions that he had studied and tested in his different works. The work where he paid his last homage to nature, which he called “the best builder” and which he always strove to imitate. One can see this clearly in the way the church is supported on leaning columns whose branches support small hyperboloid sections of vault, producing the effect of a forest.

The Nativity Façade, on Carrer Marina, is Gaudí’s great work. Almost completed by the architect, it attempts to express and communicate the joy of creation through the birth of Jesus. In the central archivolt, one can see Jesus, Joseph and Mary under the Star of Bethlehem and with the ox and the mule, surrounded by angels, musicians and singers. A careful examination of the façade’s decoration reveals over a hundred plant species and a hundred animals sculpted on the archivolts and ribs. This façade has three doors. The central one is the Door of Charity, inscribed with the names of the genealogy of Christ, from the beginning of the snake with the apple to the baby Jesus with the ox and the mule, and the signs of the Zodiac as they were on the day of Christ’s birth. On the south side is the Door of Hope, representing the marriage of Joseph and Mary, the flight to Egypt, the massacre of the innocents and a representation of the Montserrat mountain with the inscription “Salveu-nos” (“Save us”: Montserrat Mountain is traditionally considered a holy mountain and the Virgin of Montserrat the patron of Catalonia). On the opposite side is the Door of Faith representing the scenes of the Visitation; Jesus among the wise men in the temple and at his carpenter’s bench. The pinnacles of this façade resemble ears of corn and bunches of grapes, presided by the image of Mary as the Immaculate Conception. The façade as a whole celebrates the triumph of life. 

The Passion Façade on Carrer Sardenya is the counterpoint to the Nativity Façade. This façade includes over a hundred contemporary sculptures evoking the Passion by the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs. Desolation, nudity, pain and sacrifice all accompany the death of Christ to announce his resurrection and ascent to heaven. Gaudí often repeated that, had he started with this façade, people would have rejected the Sagrada Família outright. In contrast with the decorated, ornamented and turgid Nativity Façade, the Passion Door is harsh and naked, as if it were made of bones. Through a larger portico supported by six large leaning columns as sequoia tree trunks, an immense pediment rises with 18 smaller columns supporting an inner portico. The lack of decoration concentrates the tragedy in the dramatic main events, presided by the naked figure of Christ at the moment of his death.

The main façade, which will represent the life and destiny of man, is still to be built. According to Gaudí’s plan, it will face the sea looking over Carrer Mallorca, which would be covered by a large plaza reached by a huge staircase rising from what today is the doomed block of houses facing the temple. What is beginning to take shape is totally new forms in the naves of the church, which show unusual geometrical and structural solutions. The naves of the church are the result of years of study and reflection: it wasn’t until 1910 that Gaudí started the study of the naves, incorporating the experience he had acquired in the chapel of the Colònia Güell. However, the discovery of the luminosity of the hyperboloid led Gaudí to use concave-convex domes fitted to columns, walls and windows. At a scale of 1/10, this was the vision of the forest that he often used to explain his design.

The museum of the church conserves the history of its construction in site plans, photographs of different periods of the construction, fragments of models, iconography and wrought iron, wood and metal work designed by Gaudí, in addition to photographs and an audiovisual presentation on other buildings by the same architect. One can also see the models of the central nave and the façades. The most outstanding exhibits are the model that was used to calculate the structure of the church of the Colònia Güell (a solution including slightly helicoidal columns and paraboloid-helicoid arches) and a score of original drawings by the architect. There are also photographs of other buildings by Gaudí and elements that he designed and that were modelled in the workshops of the church. One of the adjoining facilities is the Sagrada Família Schools, a simple curvilinear building with the stamp of Gaudí that dazzled Le Corbusier with its technical boldness. These schools, originally intended for the children of the builders who were working on the site, form an innovative building in which Gaudí did not use iron and made all the structures with brick, thus achieving great plasticity with a very cheap material.

=== Lluís Domènech i Montaner ===
The son of a bookbinder, Lluís Domènech i Montaner was born in Barcelona on 27 December 1849. He was a versatile man who combined his passion for drawing with literature, history, deluxe editions, teaching, politics -and of course architecture. Domènech understood the work of an architect as similar to that of an orchestra conductor. He held the baton and all the instruments (the glaziers, the sculptors, the carpenters, the manufacturers of mosaics and paving...) had to sound perfect.

The young Domènech was a brilliant student of physical and natural sciences in Barcelona, and later of engineering in Madrid. This discipline led him finally to study architecture, in which he qualified in 1873. He was a lecturer at the School of Architecture of Barcelona from its foundation in 1875 (so he taught Gaudí and Puig i Cadafalch), and he was director of the School from 1900 to 1920. The publication in 1879 in the journal La Renaixença of the article “En busca de una arquitectura nacional” (“The quest for a national architecture”) gave him, along with other later works, a certain fame as an art theoretician and disseminator of the latest ideas in architecture, especially those of his much admired Viollet-le-Duc.

Considered today by many to be the “most Modernista” of the artists of Catalan Modernisme, Lluís Domènech did indeed travel and he knew what was being done in the rest of Europe by the artists of the Art Nouveau, Secession and the Arts and Crafts movements, with some of whom he established a friendship. He was, in fact, a humanist of his time, who developed himself in a wide range of fields, including botany, publishing and illustration. He was one of the most outstanding heraldists in the country, a journalist of certain renown and on several occasions he was elected president of the Ateneu Barcelonès, the main cultural association of the time. He had a long political career, starting in a Catalan nationalist movement called Jove Catalunya (Young Catalonia) and reaching the presidency of the Lliga de Catalunya and the Unió Catalanista, the first major parties of the Catalan Renaixença (the “Rebirth” of Catalan culture and nationalism, which came to life in the second half of the 19th Century). He was foremost in the drafting of the first declaration of sovereignty for Catalonia, Les Bases de Manresa in 1892, and he was elected member of the Madrid Congress in in 1904 in the so-called “four presidents’ ticket”, considered to be the first political triumph of Catalan nationalism. Soon, however, Domènech came into conflict with the almighty leader of the Lliga Regionalista, Francesc Cambó, and he abandoned conservative Catalan nationalism to found a new left-wing party, Esquerra Catalana, and to become the editor of its newspaper El Poble Català.

General Primo de Rivera in 1923 led to the dismantling of the regional structures of government in Catalonia, the prohibition of Catalan nationalist political activity at all levels, and the suppression of all but the most naive expressions of Catalan culture (even the Barcelona Football Club stadium was closed!). Domènech, always a passionate lover of life and refinement and of the most civilised forms of expression, felt profoundly affected by the brutal repression of a military regime that he could only see as illegitimate and barbaric. He retired to family life and died that winter, on the same day on which he had been born.

In addition to Barcelona, Domènech performed several important works in Canet de Mar, the home town of the family of his mother, Maria Montaner, and in Reus, thanks to his great friendship with the intellectual Pau Font de Rubinat.

=== Park Güell ===
Gaudí’s unfinished urbanistic dream, listed UNESCO World Heritage in 1984. The most ambitious urban planning operation of Barcelona in the late 19th century was idea of Gaudí’s main patron, Eusebi Güell, who in 1899 bought an old rural estate of 15 hectares called Can Muntaner de Dalt for conversion into a luxury garden city inspired in Ebenezer Howard’s model (and so the name was -and still is- spelt the English way: “Park”, as opposed to “Parc”, in Catalan).

Predictably, the person entrusted with carrying out Güell’s landscape planning scheme was Antoni Gaudí. Gaudí’s project involved the construction of a housing estate of 60 private plots and large common greens. Gaudí devised the idea of a bucolic retreat for the highest bourgeoisie of Barcelona. Its location on the hillside and far from the city was ideal to symbolise the metaphor of the ascent to paradise, to Eden. The project, however, was a total failure. Development of the estate began between 1900 and 1904 and was definitively halted in 1914. One plot was purchased by the owner of the construction company developing the works, and two more plots were sold to a single purchaser, who had only one villa built. As for the common facilities, three crosses were built to mark the place where the chapel was to be erected, but only the two entrance pavilions, the retaining walls and all the road infrastructure around a large square supported by columns were completed. As a result of this financial disaster, the heirs of Eusebi Güell, who died in 1918, sold the site to the City Council, and it was decided to preserve it as a public park. The prodigious structures raised among the typical Mediterranean vegetation are a curious mixture of fantasy and spirituality, which the staunch patriot Gaudí interspersed with Catalan emblems. A work, in short, where Gaudí gave up his habitual historicism and boldly chose a language of his own ranging from naturally-inspired forms to a surprisingly avant-garde plasticity.

The main gate of Park Güell, featuring a brick wall decorated with mosaics, is protected by a wrought iron railing and flanked by two evocative pavilions that reproduce the story of Hansel and Gretel, which was performed as an opera at the Liceu in late 1900, the same period Gaudí began to design the Park Güell. The smaller one on the left with a double cross on the roof, is the house of the children Hansel and Gretel: it currently has a bookshop and souvenir shop on the ground floor. The house on the right, crowned by a poisonous toadstool-shaped dome, represents the Witch’s dwelling -interestingly, it was meant to be the house of the Park’s guard. It now houses the Interpretation Centre of the Park, part of the Barcelona History Museum. The free-access ground floor has information on Gaudí’s work, but you must pay a fee to go upstairs to see the original house of the guard and the exhibition “Gaudí and Park Güell. Architecture and Nature”. Beyond the two pavilions, on the right one can see a kind of grotto supported by a central column that becomes wider at the top, as if it were a wine glass, meant as a shelter for carriages and horses on rainy days.

The main staircase is parted by a small waterfall featuring the famous multi-coloured dragon of glazed ceramic trencadís. The stairs lead to the hypostyle hall, also known as the Hall of the 100 Columns though it only has 86. This hall, originally intended to be the market of the future housing estate, was decorated by Gaudí’s assistant Josep Maria Jujol, who was given 'carte blanche' to do so. The result was exceptional: an undulating ceiling of mosaic with varied incrustations forming capricious spirals. When this zone was restored in 1992 lights were added at the base of the columns, which create a spectacular resemblance to a Greek church at night. From the hypostyle hall two paths lead to the great circular square, a marvellous belvedere overlooking the city. According to Gaudí’s initial design, this square was to collect rainwater, channelled down inside the columns of the hypostyle hall to be collected in a huge cistern holding up to 12,000 cubic metres (not open to the public).

The square is surrounded by a winding bench of trencadís in which the imagination of Gaudí and Jujol achieved an extraordinary boldness, considered by some specialists a forerunner of abstract art. The bench is a symphony of colours: greens, blues and yellows are used in different combinations, forming moon shapes and stars and abstract flowers. Colour, however, fades away gradually from left to right, and at the far right the bench is mainly white, the symbol of purity. The bench seems to hint that human life is a kaleidoscope of colours that culminate after death in heavenly white. The white of this part of the bench is not, however, a pure white: here Gaudí used materials that had been rejected in other buildings, such as Casa Batlló, precisely because of the “impurity” of this white. The last restoration of the bench (1995) has maintained this imperfection by using up to 21 different hues and shades of white to replace the deteriorated parts.

Other unusual features of the Park Güell are its bridges and viaducts, with twisted, grotto-like columns. The fourth portico that connects the upper part with the lower part is perhaps the most Surrealist structure, with the leaning walls and arches that recall images by Dalí. The summit of the park is crowned by a monumental Calvary formed by three crosses at the place where Gaudí had planned to build the chapel. Even here the feverish architect had symbolic fantasies. If we look toward the east -toward Jerusalem, as it were- the perspective seems to merge all three crosses into one. This is the final point of the ascent: the cross is the ultimate symbol.

* Address: Olot, s/n; ctra. del Carmel, s/n.
* Park opens November through February from 8am to 6pm. March and October, 8am to 7pm. April and September 8am to 8pm. May through August 8am to 9pm.
* [http://parkguell.net84.net/eng/ More information about the park.]

=== Tramvia Blau ===
Near La Rotonda, at the beginning of Avinguda del Tibidabo, there is a stop where you can catch the TRAMVIA BLAU. (BLUE TRAM). This tram, which originally dates from the Modernista period, is a pleasant way to approach the mountain, on a relaxed ride between majestic houses and gardens up to the funicular lower station. The six trams on the route cover the distance of 1,276 metres, including a difference in altitude of 93 metres, at an average speed of 10 kph. The Tramvia Blau’s first service on 29 October 1901 was the fulfilment of Doctor Salvador Andreu’s ambition to open up an alternative way to the Tibidabo, direct to his funfair at the summit. At first the fleet consisted of four trams that covered the route between Passeig de Sant Gervasi, the end of the line for Barcelona’s urban trams, and the lower station of the Tibidabo funicular half way up the mountain. In 1981, following a long period of restoration work, two old trams were put back into operation: tram number 2 from 1901, which had been out of service for 30 years, and the model popularly known as “la Jardinera” (“the Flower Box”) which had once run along the sea front. The renewal of the tracks on 1984 and the construction work on the city’s second ring road in 1990 affected the line’s old route. However, advantage was taken of this circumstance to build a new transformer station and refurbish the tracks and the tram sheds.

* Address: Avinguda del Tibidabo, s/n.
* Prices (2008): Single ticket: €2.60. Return ticket: €3.90.
* Open Timetables may vary with the seasons, it is advised to chek them beforehand.

=== Mercat de la Boqueria ===
==== 1200 - 1700 (Origin) ====

The Boqueria Market, as known nowadays, has been through many phases. Throught this document, we'll try to give a faithfull description of facts Where this market comes from is uncertain, what we are sure of is that it was born as a traveling market, placed in Ramblas of Barcelona. La Rambla adquired importance as a pedestrian lane, and the market couldn't be set in a better place, and it's location was many times threatened. Taking into consideration that in Catalunya, towns and cities have been founded around markets, we find that it's origens are as an open air market, infront of one of the gates of the old wall (Pla de la Boqueria) where salesmen and fruit and vegetable vendors from other towns and farms nearby settled to sale their products. Inner spaces where small for the stablishment of a big market and was necesary to set them outside the walls. It seems that some time ago vegetables were sold precisely at Pla de la Boqueria, where farmers of orchards stablished near paseo de la Ronda, known as "huertos de Sant Antoni, Sant Pau and Sant Bertran". Furhter stoped the farmers of the neighbour towns from Corts de Sarriá and Sarriá itself and between the old greengrocers and the new ones there would be fights, that would lead to not leaving tables and other things in the same warehouses. The primitive "marmanyeres" had the wide street of Figuera to rest their products, that went from calle Hospital to la Petxina and which was obstructed to public acces because of the construction of the legendary "casa de la Sileta". The "marmanyeres" of Sarriá left their things on another street, called "Sarrianesses". The market of Pla. de la Boqueria was called Bornet. Until 1794 it was called "Mercado de la Paja" (market of the hei), that's why at that time it was know as Pla del Peso de la Paja (Square of the Weight of the Straw) The market was surrounded by portics intending to be the first market in Europe. Later the Market didn't get built as it was projected. With all that, the market of Pla. de la Boqueria didn't have official caracter and became an extension of "Plaza Nueva" which grew to Plaza del Pi and by the riera with the same name connected with la Rambla.

==== 1701 - 1900 ====

It was believed convinient to take the market out of those two sqares and reorganize ir in Rambla de Sant Josep, and then the fish shops was built and butcher and bird shops were built, which formed streets by the side of the convent and the Virreina. The open air market, in Rambla de Sant José was inaugurated October 18th, 1827. - In 1823 it moved up to "Convento del Carme", but when religious orders went back to convents it went back to la Rambla, from where still wasn't taken out at all. Then it was projected to built a special constructiion for the market in the orchard of Infants Ofres' house, by calle Elisabets. - In 1826 The Marquee of Campo Sagrado, general captain of Catalunya ordered to regulate for the first time the flying market of la Boqueria. In 1835 took place the destruction of the convent of Sant Josep, then a square similar to the Plaza Reial was constructed in its lot, everything surrounded by porches and named Plaza del Treball. It had to had gardens and foutains and a very high column of monumental, allegorical sense of the work. At that time it would've been the the greatest square in Barcelona, since it had to connect with Jerusalem street. When the urbanization was almost ready and while the moment was expected to begin works of the new market in the orchard of the "Orfes", it was believed necessary to temporarily install the market in the lot of the old convent of Sant Josep to be able to remove it from the middle of la Rambla. That's why the houses that surround and frame the market of the Boqueria form porches, that are not like the present market, but to the projected Plaza del Trabajo, in style of the Real. In 1836 when the convent of the Carmelitas dissapeared with it's church of Saint Josep, the city hall projected the construction of the market. The project was in charge of the architect Mas Vilá. That year the market was inaugurated. 

St. Joseph's day in 1840 the first stone of the market of la Boqueria was placed. In 1848 was constructed an enclosure for the fishmonger's shop behind the palace of the Virreina. Also was built the pavilion "Repeso" that would later become the office of the Direction and Veterinary Services. The new market was insufficient. - In 1853 the market acquired to official character when 14 florists paid their tables, and they were uniformed. This is the origin of the florists of la Rambla. -In 1861 some fruits and vegetables salesmen wer allowed to settle provisionally at Plaza Sant Agustí and it was then when la Rambla remained exclusively for flower stands. Many salesmen gave out a flower for the purchase of some of their products. The sale of flowers increased. - In 1863, the retail places of fruits and vegetables, settled underneath the porches. - In the 1869 the convent of Jerusalen was demolished, behind the market to extend it in that direction. - In Christmas of 1871, the gas illumination was inaugurated. In 1911 the actual fishmonger's shop was built. In the beginning of the XIX century, la Rambla had from Carme st. to la Petxina, the width that has today the front part of the Palace of the Virreina. In the space between the houses and the trees, was the market divided in differentiated sectors (according to the product that was dealt).

==== 1901 - 2007 ====

In 1914 the market with the metal deck was inaugurated. As from there it began to modernize and to improve, not only at sanitary level, aesthetic, and decorative. These places have been demolished several times. Before in Plaza Galdrich (of the farmers) there were wooden shaks, where gentlemen with a typewriter wrote up what people asked them to. Long lines formed. These services we give them today at the information point.


==== Today ====

Throughout the years La Boqueria has become the most emblematic market of all the network. The structure, the situation, and the salesmen turn it into an obligated (must-see) to all the tourists who visit our city. This market has for the Barcelonians, the suggestion of a family memoire, it's entwined with the city history, of all our families, their popular traditions and celebrations. The present salesmen are mostly, of the third and fourth generation of salesmen of the market. They are the union of the past with the present. Inovators, full of projects and renovation ideas of la Boqueria for the new Barcelona. The commercial supply is vary; fresh fish and seafood, salty fish, tinned food, butchery and offal, birds, hunt and eggs, fruits and vegetables, herbes and dietetic, delicatessen, bread furnace, restaurants, frozens, specialities, charcuterie, farmer stops, etc...