Barcelona's 1992 Summer Olympics

Yes, that, for us, man… that was so beautiful. Barcelona recovered…well, it had recovered already, but Barcelona reached the world stage. Many Americans, for example, unaware of Barcelona was, discovered it through the Olympics. They were great, so fraternal, so beautiful. Listen, as a child, you’d walk by the harbor, but never see the ocean. Just a mess of factories. From the Olympics on, we got to know the sea. We lived with the sea, beside the sea. Barcelona underwent an extraordinary change. All Catalan people were enormously satisfied by the Olympics.

Well, I wouldn’t be that optimistic… Obviously, there was a real celebrity here in Pascual Maragall, who did know how to see through a very important city project, but… The Olympics were really the icing on the cake, no? It was all about Pascual Maragall’s political oversight. And the Olympics…evaluated on their own, I have conflicting opinions, not so cut and dry. Of course, the development of the Olympic Village, architecturally speaking, is very interesting. Obviously, it opened the city to the sea. Not that Barcelona doesn’t have a great sea tradition. But the Olympics did more for Pascual Maragall’s legacy than the city itself.

Everything. Everything changed. Barcelona had always been an organized city. We’ve had the Eixample neighborhood for many years, which has long given the city structure. But it was a city, many would recall, that was inaccessible. Gray, with many neighborhoods unreachable. Dangerous neighborhoods, too. There were efforts being made to keep the city clean, but neighborhoods were not well connected. It was impossible for Barcelona to be Spain’s most important city. Even with so much to offer: weather, sea, etc. the city was devastated. I wouldn’t describe it as wounded. Call it a turbulent past…I wouldn’t dare describe Barcelona as a turbulent city. Barcelona has been the color gray. But it has always been a very kind, welcoming and joyful city. You could go anywhere, and, as we were saying, there were dangerous neighborhoods, but people were happy, living in the present. It was different, even if they weren’t sure where they’d be sleeping that night.

The Olympics had a positive impact on Barcelona. The city was revealed to the world. First hand, I could see that people knew Barcelona better than Spain. I was living in the United States at the time. At the same time, we’d lost something deeply rooted in Barcelona. The Barceloneta beach bars, the Xiringuitos were gone. Much of Barcelona was modernized and widened. Many social problems in Barcelona were remedied. It’s hard to strike a balance. In certain ways, we’re ahead, but in others, Barcelona is losing authenticity. They wanted to modernize Barcelona in this sense. The 92’ Olympics were Pascual Maragall’s greatest achievement. In addition to being mayor of Barcelona, he was really focused on the city. Instead of presenting Catalunya as a nation, as Jordi Pujol did, his notion was of a federal Spain. Highlighting Barcelona’s great power within the federation. Highlighting Barcelona’s great power within the federation. Pascual Maragall greatest achievement was getting Barcelona’s Olympic nomination. It was a personal and collective victory. I think most of us were very happy with what was transpiring. We discussed the planning in advance, and some good came out of it, and some not so good. Barcelona was shown to the world while Catalunya remained hidden. We still have much to do.

The Olympic games were an extraordinary change for the city. At the beginning, we were skeptical. It was destroying things we considered important. I think that Pascual Maragall, who was the best mayor we’ve had, was a person with a great vision for the future, a deep, expansive view of things. His grandfather was the great poet Joan Maragall. He dreamed this city, though, I don’t know if it was of the way it is now. Because the city has changed for good, opening to the sea, widening. Its growth was well planned. One thing those Olympics had going for them was that all the installations were later repurposed. Nothing went to waste. For the first time, the Olympic Games received help from volunteers, which made it all work so well. Since then, other hosts have done the same thing, but Barcelona was the first. As I was saying, people here collaborate on things. At that moment, it seemed like Barcelona was going to grow and open up even more. With time, though, it has grown in a way that isn’t much appreciated by people from here, The food is all the same. Everything is a copy of something else. Shops have horrible souvenirs that pertain to nothing. The degree to which we cater to tourism has gotten out of hand, more so than the tourism itself. I think the Olympic Games were great. They really got us a lot of attention, and now we’re not sure what to do with it. Maybe we’re a bit overwhelmed. Everything planned went great, but what wasn’t…maybe that’s messed things up. It’s again an expensive city, forcing people from the neighborhoods out. First from El Born, now it’s happening around the Sant Antoni Market. It all continues as long as Barcelona remains as pretty as it is now. So welcoming, with so much to give.

Well, the 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin. It was seen as advantageous for Hitler, providing him with a platform from which to preach his racist ideology. So here in Barcelona, a People’s Olympiad was conceived to protest the Berlin Olympics. Some countries participated, and it was scheduled to begin July 19, 1936, but that was the day of the military coup. The Olympiad fell through, and some athletes who arrived to play, stayed and fought the fascist revolt alongside the Republic and Generalitat. But anyway, the Olympiad never happened. A year after the Olympics of 1992, we started a group to honor President Companys. We campaigned to change the name from Montjuïc Stadium to President Companys Olympic Stadium. For one thing, because the People’s Olympiad would have been presided over by Lluís Companys. And as well, he was executed on Montjuïc, and buried in Montjuïc Cemetery, which is beside the stadium. It didn’t work out, not at that time. Years later, Maragall renamed it President Companys Olympic Stadium. A ceremony was held by the city council in Barcelona after an assembly room was dedicated to President Companys, and they invited me to the commemoration, since I’ve published several books about him. I approached Maragall and told him it was all very nice, but that the Olympics would have been the right moment for the announcement. Then everybody would have known who Lluís Companys was. The only democratically-elected president executed by international fascism. Maragall told me that it wasn’t the right time, that it wasn’t politically interesting.

The 1980s? Well, there’s something very important happened in the ’80s, and that’s that Barcelona is nominated for the Olympics. Why is Barcelona allowed to host the Olympics? Simply put, because the Olympic Committee president did as he pleased, and he, And he, Juan Antonio Samaranch, was from Barcelona. He owned a piece of land in El Prat that was the perfect location for the Olympic Village. The thing is, once Barcelona got the nomination, there was no backing out, and members of the Barcelona City Council ruined that deal for him. Why? Because they had connections with a group of companies that had promoted El Prat de la Ribera in 1965. The goal was to reconfigure the Barcelona coast, from Barceloneta to el Besòs. It couldn’t be done at the time, and 20 years later they saw an opportunity. That’s why the Olympic Village is located where it is. These companies owned land there, but it was a bad location for factories. The land decreased in value and one company that took advantage of this situation was Renfe, but it wasn’t the only one. The Free Trade Zone Consortium, Laforet, Motor Ibérica, or Nissan, nowadays, and more. They had huge stretches of factory land there, and this was the great opportunity. And since they couldn’t all be used for the Olympics, years later, they built the Universal Culture Forum. And this speculative venture, bringing us to today’s Barcelona, is the most important event of the ’80s.

The Olympic games were an extraordinary change for the city. At the beginning, we were skeptical. It was destroying things we considered important. I think that Pascual Maragall, who was the best mayor we’ve had, was a person with a great vision for the future, a deep, expansive view of things. His grandfather was the great poet Joan Maragall. He dreamed this city, though, I don’t know if it was of the way it is now. Because the city has changed for good, opening to the sea, widening. Its growth was well planned. One thing those Olympics had going for them was that all the installations were later repurposed. Nothing went to waste. For the first time, the Olympic Games received help from volunteers, which made it all work so well. Since then, other hosts have done the same thing, but Barcelona was the first. As I was saying, people here collaborate on things. At that moment, it seemed like Barcelona was going to grow and open up even more. With time, though, it has grown in a way that isn’t much appreciated by people from here, The food is all the same. Everything is a copy of something else. Shops have horrible souvenirs that pertain to nothing. The degree to which we cater to tourism has gotten out of hand, more so than the tourism itself. I think the Olympic Games were great. They really got us a lot of attention, and now we’re not sure what to do with it. Maybe we’re a bit overwhelmed. Everything planned went great, but what wasn’t…maybe that’s messed things up. It’s again an expensive city, forcing people from the neighborhoods out. First from El Born, now it’s happening around the Sant Antoni Market. It all continues as long as Barcelona remains as pretty as it is now. So welcoming, with so much to give.

The Olympics were great for Barcelona and for my generation. We enjoyed them. I remember perfectly the day Barcelona won the Olympic bid. I was 16, I believe, in high school, and people were overjoyed. People signed up to be volunteers, and Barcelona changed dramatically. The beltway that surrounds the city appeared overnight. People didn’t know what was being built. I had to use it to cross the city. The sea appeared. Barcelona had had its back to the sea. You couldn’t get to it because of the Xiringuitos. And suddenly you had the maritime promenade, and spots on the beach. There’s a before and after with Barcelona’s Olympics. Opening to the world, to tourism, to knowledge. I was 22 at the time of the Olympics, and for my generation, it was beautiful, stunning. A very important change for the city. The people of Barcelona gained self esteem. You think you live in a provincial city within Franco’s Spain, until one day you say, “I speak to the world as an equal. We have much to say, and are capable of organizing greatthings.” I remember these three comics named Martes & Trece who would, every New Year’s Eve say, “They’re not going to make it,” convinced that the construction for the Olympics wouldn’t be completed in time. But, in the end, everything was ready, and pretty good. Locals were proud. It was an important change.

Oh, I remember that very, very well The noise. The drilling. Everywhere. Everything was closed. Now the subway. Now the bus. Not this still street. You couldn’t park. I remember it as a really, really important change. The television full of commercials. I was also involved, working with the Red Cross back then. So I was part of the volunteer force, taking classes…everything. I remember some facilities weren’t finished in time. There was a village for athletes completed just in time. It was creating the Roman Empire. It was very big, and there wasn’t a lot of time. I think it was very well-planned, but sometimes things go awry. The planning was very good, but, as a citizen, it was difficult. Yet, we had a sense of accomplishment. It was a huge project, and we completed it. And when the man said, “Well, it’s done. Everything’s fine,” we all felt freed. And when the man said, “Well, it’s done. Everything’s fine,” we all felt relief. He said, “But now that it’s ready, now, it really begins.” I went to many events. If nobody was attending, you could get in for free. There were soccer matches between teams of little consequence. “Ireland vs. Macedonia!” I don’t know, countries that didn’t have big leagues. It wasn’t Germany, or Holland, or anything like that, because we din’t have enough money for that sort of thing. I went to two or three soccer matches with my wife and many of them were for free. Archery…I’d never seen archery before in my life, or sports that you’d only see on TV, and since they were right here, we went. Because it was in Barcelona and you thought, “I’ll never get another chance.” And we watched sports that made you happy, that we didn’t no existed. It made the city feel exciting, and what was most important, it changed the mood of everything. It really elevated the Barcelona branded. And Cobi beat flamenco and the bull. A total victory, and I believe that Barcelona took a great step forward.