Tag Archives: Catalonia

April 23, 2013 · 10:19 am

Sharing St. George’s Day

Many Christian countries, regions, and cities have St. George as their patron saint, so today is a day of celebration for many of them.  Were I lucky enough to be in Barcelona, my favorite spot in the world, right now, I would be enjoying the “Day of the Book”, which I talked about in this guest post I did for author and speaker Dawn Eden on her website this time last year.  And I could wander all over the city admiring the many images of St. George and the Dragon, as I showed in this photo essay from a couple of years ago.

Jordi

St. George and the Dragon by Franz Pforr (c. 1815)
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

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January 5, 2012 · 2:51 pm

‘Twas the Night Before Epiphany

Most of us, I suspect, have already begun taking down the Christmas decorations, whereas in Barcelona, which as regular readers know I visited recently, tonight things are ratcheting up to the peak of the Christmas season. This evening there will be a huge parade celebrating the arrival of the Three Kings or Wise Men, who sail into Barcelona’s harbor – yes, “I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In” – and then make their way accompanied by all sorts of attendants and entertainers up into the center of town, much to the delight of the children assembled along the route.  Tomorrow morning, the good children of Barcelona will wake to see what toys, gifts, and treats the Kings have brought them while they were sleeping, and of course adults will exchange gifts with each other as well.

We are all-too-aware of the fact that the celebration of Christmas begins too early and ends too quickly in the present day.  I say “Christmas”, though truthfully what we are often celebrating has little or nothing to do with the birth of Christ, but rather reflects the change of seasons from autumn to winter. It would be more appropriate to say that we begin celebrating the Winter Solstice around Thanksgiving, if not in some cases (such as with retailers) well before that.

Bearing in mind the traditional Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, we ought to remember that traditionally, everything leading up to Christmas Day is actually Advent, not Christmastide. Christmas celebrations start on the 25th, and run through tomorrow, the 12th day, when Christians celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, i.e. the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child in Bethlehem and the manifestation that Christ would be a Savior to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews.  In many parts of the world, such as Barcelona, the major exchange of gifts occurs not on Christmas Day itself, even if some small gifts happen to be given on Christmas, but on the Feast of the Epiphany.

Apart from my admitted bias in favor of anything having to do with Barcelona and Catalan culture, and the fact that I am certainly no theologian, this practice has always struck me, as a layman, as being theologically sound.  Exchanging gifts on the day we commemorate the Birth of Jesus seems to take the focus off of the gift of God and put it onto ourselves.  How could one reasonably expect to compete with the gift of eternal salvation by purchasing items in a shop?  Whereas the Three Kings, in giving gifts to the newborn Savior twelve days later, give us an excuse to symbolically mimic their actions and give gifts that symbolize our love for one another.

I am always struck when I am in Barcelona during the Christmas season how even with the enormous quantity of lights and decorations spread all over the city, which in many cases far exceeds anything you have seen in any urban setting in this country, that there is at least still some element of a lessened materialism as compared to how we do things on this side of the pond.  Yes, people are shopping and there are advertisements for all sorts of gifts that could be given, but in the lead-up to Christmas Day itself there does not seem to be the same focus on the accumulation of material goods at the expense of tradition.  Even in a city as secular as Barcelona very often can be, there is still a love of family and community that seems to outweigh the amassing of things which no one really needs.

How long this will last, I do not know.  Over the years I have seen attendance at Midnight Mass at the Monastery of Pedralbes, where we always go when we are in town, steadily decline.  My mother can recall when Midnight Mass there was standing room only, and I would say ten years ago there was still quite a crowd of people – if not exactly standing room, at least it was full with perhaps a few stragglers standing in the back.  This Christmas the pews in the monastic church were perhaps 3/4 full, at most, and the over-60′s outnumbered the under-40′s by at least 5 to 1.

There is no question that there needs to be a new evangelization in Europe, and that it will take a long time to see the fruits of such efforts.  Yet here in America, we should not sit back and assume that we are in better shape, simply because the masses are still jam-packed at Christmas.  There will always be Christmas poinsettias and Easter lilies, as a priest friend of mine likes to call them – those Catholics who only show up for mass on Christmas and Easter, like the flowers we associate with those major Feasts of the Church.  Yet we could and should be doing more to encourage those people to stick around for the rest of the year as well.

Christmas is not over yet, gentle reader, and indeed, one could even make the argument that the celebrations continue up through Candlemas on February 2nd, though I suspect by then most of us would be rather tired of dusting the tree and ornaments and so on.  However while there is still time do so, why not encourage a friend to attend church with you this weekend, when we will celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany at Sunday mass?  Let them ask questions and do your best to try to answer them, and see whether you can plant a seed that will germinate and take root – maybe not right away, but over time.  What a wonderful gift you would be able to give to Christ, as we remember the day He received the gifts of the Magi.

Parade of the Three Kings through the streets of Barcelona last year

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January 4, 2012 · 4:30 pm

Barcelona Through Jewish Eyes

One of the more memorable experiences I had while in Barcelona was a tweep-up with New Yorkers Seth and Bethany Mandel, who were in the city at the start of their honeymoon.  For those of my readers who do not use Twitter, I should explain that, loosely speaking, a “tweep-up” is when people who follow each other on Twitter, where members often use the term “tweep” to refer to a Twitter friend, actually meet up in real life.  In the case of the Mandels, we had been friends on Twitter for some months, but had never actually met in person until last week, when we all happened to be in Barcelona at the same time.

The Mandels are an orthodox Jewish couple who keep kosher, and because of this they were going to have a very difficult time eating in Spain, where even sweets like almond cookies are often cooked in pork lard rather than vegetable shortening.  So I wanted to make an effort to show them not only some of the Roman and Gothic monuments that dominate the old district or “Gothic Quarter” of Barcelona, but also the remains of the “Call”, or Jewish ghetto, which existed in this ancient part of the city until the 14th century.  As someone who has always been aware of the importance of the Jewish community in Barcelona historically, it was an eye-opener for me to actually come to understand things a little bit more by seeing them first-hand.

The Jewish portion of our tour started at a shop in the old Jewish Quarter called, appropriately enough El Call, which carries a wide selection of books, kosher wines and chocolates from Catalonia and elsewhere, as well as travel information, souvenirs, etc.  The young man running the shop that morning on behalf of his father had just returned a day or so earlier from studying in Atlanta.  He noted that it was far easier to find kosher food there than in Barcelona, where there were few Jewish families who kept kosher.

After some wandering around we were eventually able to enter what remains of the ancient Sinagoga Major, or Main Synagogue, located about a block away and housed in a building subsequently built on top of it.  One got a real sense of the strata of history here, since the original foundation stones of the building, far below the present-day street level, were of Roman imperial vintage.  Things were then built up in layers over time, and one could see how each passing century added more and more stones on top of what came before, so that the original topography of the area was obscured by later construction.

The small rooms maintained by the Associació Call de Barcelona, or Jewish Quarter Association of the city, include a main room used for more intimate services, such as weddings, and a collection of Judaica donated by various patrons.  There is a massive menorah created by a Catalan sculptor from the island of Minorca, display cabinets containing various silver pieces and artefacts, and reproductions of documents held in the archives of the association.  It is remarkable that the place was re-discovered and renovated beginning only about 15 years ago, thanks to the efforts of local historians and the Jewish community.

The group gave a brief presentation to us and others who had come to the synagogue about the history of the place and the residents of the area. Afterwards, the Mandels had the chance to chat a bit with the ladies from the association who run the place, as well as pick up a few souvenirs. I was particularly amused by the sight of yarmulkes in the red and blue colors of F.C. Barcelona or “Barça”, the legendary and hugely popular Barcelona football (soccer) club.

Afterwards we popped in to Caelum, a tea room and pastry shop built on top of the old mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath. Unfortunately the bath was only open to visitors in the afternoon, and I did not get to see it with the Mandels themselves, but at least they could see a bit of it through the floor grating at the entrance. Again, Barcelona is such an ancient city that everything is built up in layers, and the present-day street level is well above where things originally stood.

While perhaps the best thing I did during our morning runaround was to introduce Mr. Mandel to the pleasures of the “tallat” or “cortado” – espresso “cut” with hot milk, which he thoroughly enjoyed – I came away from the experience more aware of the Jewish heritage of my favorite place in the world. It was something I had always been aware of in the abstract, and even from having wandered around El Call many times in the past. Yet to see a place through the eyes of others, who are seeing it for the first time, forces you re-examine the familiar.

I could make the analogy, for example, of a Catholic taking a non-Catholic to see a famous church or an art museum containing Renaissance altarpieces. The discussion about the meaning and significance of what one is seeing leads to both parties becoming more aware of the connections to the past which they may have either not been aware of, or simply taken for granted as being commonly known. That was certainly true in this case, or at least I hope it was as much for the Mandels as it was for this scrivener.

The experience is also a testament to the power of social media to connect us. I would certainly never have met the Mandels, or known they were going to be in Barcelona at the same time I was there, had it not been through the connections we made on Twitter.  There is much that can be said of such networking sites that is negative, but in this case I believe it to be a positive example of the good that can come out of the outreach capable through such venues.  When used in the right way, even an old hand around Barcelona like yours truly can come to learn even more about something he already knows and loves well.

Giant menorah in the ancient Sinagoga Major in Barcelona

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December 2, 2011 · 3:29 pm

A Glimmer of Christmas in Europe

Three weeks from today I shall be strolling about downtown Barcelona, at the beginning of my holidays there. Because I have been to the ancient capital of Catalonia many times, I will need to see little as a tourist, but at Christmastime there are certain special sights and experiences one must certainly take in. Among these is the city’s official Nativity scene, and this year’s installation has me wondering whether we are seeing a glimmer of hope from an otherwise rapidly secularizing Europe.

Each year the official Barcelona city Nativity scene is set up in the Plaça Sant Jaume (St. James’ Square), where city hall and the provincial government face each other. This site was once the old Roman forum, back when Barcelona was a Roman provincial town, and nearby one can see vestiges of this, such as Roman watchtowers and walls, part of a temple dedicated to Caesar Augustus, and whole sections of Roman streets and building foundations preserved below the present-day street level. Over the years I have seen some good, and some awful, examples of Nativity scenes set up in the square, but this year’s display is going to be something quite different.

According to news reports and video, this year’s Nativity scene looks back at Romanesque art, which is among Catalonia’s most significant contributions to world culture. The Romanesque period in art and architecture occurred from about 950-1100 A.D., after which it was supplanted by the Gothic style. While reducing matters to a rather basic level, Romanesque art can be distinguished by some of its details such as the use of rounded arches, bright colors, and fairly simple shapes. Catalonia is one of the few places in the world that has managed to preserve a great wealth of not only Romanesque architecture, but painted sculpture and wall murals as well.

City officials, taking advantage of this legacy, asked designer Rosa Ros Pijoan from the Barcelona Cultural Institute to incorporate various elements of Romanesque art into this year’s city Nativity scene. She did so by including reproductions of architectural elements, such as the interior and exterior of a Romanesque-style church, with a brightly colored wall painting depicting the Birth of Jesus; a section of a typical Romanesque cloister planted with a garden; and three-dimensional figures in Romanesque style from the Biblical telling of Christ’s birth as well as from popular Catalan Christmas carols, including the angels appearing to the shepherds, the Magi, men and women in traditional Catalan dress, etc. All of this is surrounded by a garden of living plants native to Catalonia, including local types of olive and pine trees, herbs, and wild flowers. Those strolling through this temporary garden will hear piped-in audio of some of the sounds of the Catalan countryside as well, from the Tramuntanya (the wind that rushes down from France and into Catalonia through the Pyrenees), local birds, church bells, and the waves of the Mediterranean.

And this is not all. For the first time, the city government has decided to extend the Christmas display into its own territory. In the 15th century Gothic interior courtyard of city hall, display cases have been set up containing typical, smaller-scale but highly elaborate Nativity scenes from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, taken from the holdings of the Barcelona Ethnographic Museum. The assembling of such scenes is a particular favorite of the Catalan people, and it is wonderful to see that this tradition will be celebrated in an official way by the local government.

I suspect that this shift is at least in part due to the fact that the new city official in charge of Barcelona’s cultural affairs, Counselor Jaume Ciurana, is from the more centrist regional political party, rather than from the leftist socialist party that had kept a stranglehold over the city government for the past couple of decades. During that period of time many things improved in the city with respect to transportation, re-development of brownfield sites, and so on, but at the same time many things went downhill, particularly with respect to the safety and preservation of historic, older parts of town such as the Gothic Quarter. Tradition was often sacrificed in the name of trying to appear hip and cosmopolitan, and in the process, one got the impression that Catalonia was forgetting what it made it unique and special.

In an interview he gave this summer to La Vanguardia, the largest-selling Barcelona daily, Ciruana noted that things had to change in his office based on a realistic appreciation of what Barcelona is, and what it is not; his assessment ought to be read by local leaders all over Europe:

I have to say that in the debate over multiculturalism and interculturalism, I am more for the latter. Among other things, because the former has failed in Europe. Barcelona is not a federation of ethnic groups. The concept of Catalan culture is changing. Barcelona has had a major demographic change, but the thread that binds together this group of citizens is Catalan culture.

For a European from a center-left party in charge of cultural affairs in a major city with a long history of leftist politics, these are fairly bold statements. Yet Ciruana goes even further in chastising his city for playing the copycat game under the socialists:

Sometimes there is a risk of confusing cosmopolitanism and provincialism. Thinking that anything foreign is better is provincialism. And cosmopolitan culture is often a franchise, it is exactly the same in Berlin, New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires. I want what’s happening here to be as interesting as what happens in these cities, but not the same.

This observation strikes a particular chord with me, because over the past twenty years I have seen many things which made Barcelona unique and special vanish, to be replaced by a kind of cookie-cutter, plastic culture that could be found in any of the aforementioned cities, or many others.

The Catholic in me, of course, also wonders whether the Papal Visit to Barcelona a year ago, to dedicate the new Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, may not have had a residual impact on the people of the city as well. All of the naysayers in the press said that no one but the elderly and a few right-wingers would be interested in seeing the Pope, and that his visit would be overshadowed by massive protests against him. As it turned out, all of the news outlets were completely dumbfounded by the enormous outpouring of affection for the Holy Father from all age groups, but particularly among the youth of the city.  And the protests that did take place were so tiny that they could have been completely ignored, were not the members of the press more interested in pressing a leftist agenda than in reporting the truth.

In any case, making sure that Christ stays in Christmas, particularly in a place so often hostile to Him as Barcelona is, is something worth celebrating.  Whether the change of heart has to do with a change of political party, the Pope, or simply happenstance, I am pleased to see that the city I love most in the world seems to be taking its Christian past more seriously than it has for many years.  And I look forward to seeing this Nativity scene in person very soon.


Dr. Xavier Trias, the present Mayor of Barcelona,
tours the City’s Romanesque-style Nativity scene last evening

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September 15, 2011 · 4:01 pm

Barcelona’s Forgotten Master

The CaixaForum in Barcelona has just opened a retrospective on the life and work of an often-forgotten 20th century Catalan architect, Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia (1858-1931), which will run through early January. Sagnier is a man who, at this point, is almost certainly not as familiar to students of architecture as the famous triumvirate of early 20th century Catalan architects, Gaudí, Domènech i Montaner, and Puig i Cadafalch, men who set such an obvious stamp on the city of Barcelona. And yet, the lives of visitors to and residents of Barcelona are both surrounded and shaped by his work, likely without their even knowing it.

Those who have had occasion to visit my ongoing cataloging project over at CatholicBarcelona.com will find Sagnier’s name a familiar one. At the turn of the 20th century he was unquestionably the preferred architect of the Archdiocese when it came to building new ecclesiastical structures, such as parish churches, schools, and institutions. Among his many buildings in this general category are the parish churches of Mary, Help of Christians (1889) St. John in Horta (1905), the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Mt. Tibidabo (1902), Our Lady of Pompeii (1905), the Basilica of St. Joseph Oriol(1911),  Our Lady of the Rosary (1923), and St. Raymond Nonat (1924).

However, in addition to his work in this area, Sagnier also designed secular buildings of particular significance to the life of the city. Among other structures Sagnier co-designed the Palace of Justice (1886), which houses the city’s law courts, the Customs House (1896) of the city port, the original Royal Yacht Club (1911) which was, sadly, later demolished and replaced by a glass box, and numerous large apartment buildings, banks, and offices, which still dominate many of the main thoroughfares of downtown Barcelona.

Sagnier was on many occasions given both the luxury and the challenge of having to work with a building which would be sited on a prominent corner – a task which is not as easy as one might think. Because a structure which includes a corner is naturally going to have more exposure than one which sits in the middle of a block, the architect has various ways in which he can address the urban geography. He can ignore the corner entirely, choosing to front the building on one or another street; he can embrace the corner, by having it serve as the fulcrum to his design; or he can try to come up with some way to both acknowledge the corner but not make it the center of his plans.

Take for example, Sagnier’s monumental Caixa de Pensions (1914) savings bank, which sits on a rather awkward corner of the Via Laietana. This avenue was cut through the old city in the early 20th century, separating the Gothic Quarter from La Ribera and the Borne district, and whose construction involved the regrettable demolition of a number of historic structures. Toward the top of the avenue, where the Av. Bilbao juts off, there is an oddly shaped, but prominent corner, which Sagnier was commissioned to fill.

The resulting building, a mixture of Gothic, Romanesque, and Slavic architecture, among other things, exhibits the asymmetry which was characteristic of the Art Nouveau period, but which in this case was designed to address the particular problem of the site. The prominent clock tower on the SW corner faces the little square formed by the branching off of Av. Bilbao from the Via Laietana, which gets far more light and traffic than the opposite, SE corner, which has a much smaller, slimmer tower. Had the two towers been of equal proportions, the resulting building would have looked, paradoxically, to be out of balance in relation to the site.

Similarly, because the SW tower is about three times the width and height of the SE tower, Sagnier chose to locate the entrance to the building not through the center of the facade, but rather through the SW tower itself, via two archways set into the base of the tower. Although again, this lends an asymmetrical aspect to the building, it also allows the structure to take full advantage of the site. Rather than presenting a single facade to the south side of the intersection, it allows the facade to wrap around the sides of the building, drawing in those who are coming to do business there to approach it from multiple sides, while at the same time making very clear where the main entrance is.

Having said this, while he has some flashes of brilliance in his work, Sagnier is not an architect who strikes me as particularly impressive in his output. He is not as innovative in his interpretation of historical architectural styles, fusing these influences to create something entirely new, as did his better-known contemporaries. Nor is he what we might loosely call a “classical” architect, remaining true to certain established principles of design irrespective of trends or fashion, in order to produce something timelessly beautiful. His work is sometimes a bit fussy and contrived, almost as though he opened up an architectural salvage catalogue and threw together various disconnected elements, but without that spark of genius that characterized Catalan architecture at the turn of the previous century.

He was, however, a man who clearly cared deeply about his home town and about the Christian faith, producing structures which, in their grandeur if not always in their execution, were worthy of any of the great cities of the world. A re-assessment of his work was long overdue, and it is a very good thing that both the citizens of and visitors to Barcelona will become more familiar with his long career and extensive output. I am definitely looking forward to catching this exhibition when I am in Barcelona this Christmas.


Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia

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