Gaudí’s Casa Milà is located on Passeig de Gràcia, cross-street Provença. Commissioned in 1906 by Pere Milà, a Catalan industrialist and politician, it took six years to complete. 

Milà, the man, remains a controversial figure, and deservedly so, like many local heavies of early 20th century Barcelona. One the one hand, Milà was a Catalanist, running as a member of the Catalan Solidarity movement in 1907 that formed in the wake of the Cut-Cut! incident which led to the Law of Jurisdictions’ passage in 1901. But he later, paradoxically, and not uncommonly for this group, lent support to the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, a Spanish general who ruled Spain from 1923 to 1930. This period in Spanish history is discussed at length in Episode 2 of Catalunya Barcelona, an episode entitled La Rosa de Foc.

The building bearing his name, Casa Milà was also controversial, at least early on. Its pseudonym, La Pedrera, meaning the “The Rock Quarry,” used extensively today to promote tourism, was a pejorative name, penned by critics of the project who viewed it as violation of conventional style, and not a few zoning laws. Joan Junceda, for example, whose one-panel illustration was responsible for the Cu-Cut! incident, sketched a one-panel illustration that made Casa Milà appear as a giant Easter Cake.

I’ve lived close to Casa Milà for many years, and it’s the sort of building you can’t not acknowledge when you walk past, no matter how often you walk past. It’s alternately struck me as a giant sand castle, the wrought iron balconies appearing as flourishes of seaweed, and as the fossilized body part of some fantastic creature. Something along the thoracic region. All the windows, one notes, are sockets for numerous extremities, the fossil remains of which have not yet been unearthed. 

I visited it again yesterday. That is to say, took the tour, for the first time in six or seven years. Family is in town from the states. In spite of its popularity, it being the high season now, the tour never felt rushed, and so long as you purchase your ticket online and arrive in or around the time you booked, there’s not much of a wait. You’re afforded access to three floors—the rooftop, the penthouse, and the apartment, or living area. 

That line, or a similar one, has been set to print a million times, and, indeed it was, at one time, accurate. That is not true today, and hasn’t, really, been true for many years. The city’s popularity has exploded, which is discussed at length in episodes nine and ten of the documentary series Catalunya Barcelona, and with increased population, regulations are passed to maintain a semblance of order. This is perfectly natural. Order, after all, is easy when everyone’s got elbow room. 

Licensing requirements were introduced, and the number of buskers in the city rapidly dwindled. The city’s most famous street, La Rambla, or Les Rambles, or Las Ramblas earned its tourism stripes by virtue of the galaxy of street performances taking place there. Yet, the street performers are gone for the most part, quarantined to a small block at the butt end of the pedestrian walk, replaced by pricey sidewalk cafés, and innocuous kiosks hawking gelato. 

This blog entry, in spite of the contents of the preceding paragraphs, is not a lament. True, I regret that friends who’d subsisted on street performance for years, long before I arrived, have now moved on, to other cities where they can perform with fewer restrictions. But this article is about the impending extinction of this breed of artist, not its forced migration. 

We are moving rapidly to a cashless world. In Barcelona, five years ago, when hailing a cab, you were foolish not to ask, “Puedo pagar con Visa?” if you only had plastic in your pocket. Today, every cab is required to have a credit card reader. And, indeed, the number of restaurants and shops only taking cash, or as it’s called here, “efectivo,” has gone from a majority to a curiosity.  

Unless you’re in Germany or Austria, one can go weeks without handling paper money. This is the reason I assert that the busker is going the way of the whooping crane. 

I stumble upon street performances—most, technically, clandestine— all the time. Some are quite impressive, more than worthy of an entertainment dollar or two, but most of the time I’m carrying no dollars at all. The busker, at the conclusion of his performance goes from table to table with a hat, but I’m usually stuck saying, “Lo siento. No tengo efectivo.” For their trouble, all I can pay is an apology. 

This problem is only going to get worse. Devices like Square, which imbue small businesses and independent contractors with the ability to process credit card transactions are not going to help. Fear of credit card fraud, identity theft have been burnt into the psyches of so many, the notion of sliding an American Express card through a street musician’s card reader seems a risk few would be willing to take. 

And so, soon enough, buskers will live on, only in pictures and memory, flanked by other extinct exotics like the West African Black Rhino, the Passenger Pigeon and the Tasmanian Tiger. 

 Still, the longer I live in Barcelona, the more frequently I visit Sagrada Família. I don’t worry whether it’s the high season or not. One can always find a place to stand and admire it from a comfortable position. Sunsets are best, though that favors the newer Passion Façade, as the shadows come nicely into play.

Sagrada Família has two main façades. The Nativity Façade, Gaudí’s creation, and the Passion Façade, erected decades after his death. The third façade, the Glory Façade, is under construction, “is to be the largest and most striking,” but at this point, you can’t really get a sense of it in person.

The Nativity Façade, or Gaudí facade, is easily the most interesting to look at. It’s just got so much going on. This is not to denigrate the Passion Façade. It is comparatively minimalist, by design, so it’s not as easy to see features you haven’t noticed before.

It was also recently consecrated as a minor–there are four majors–basilica, by Pope Benedict XVI, in 2010. I was in Barcelona when it happened. A massive police barricade surrounded the church–its perimeter so vast, it took me twice as long to walk home that day.

More soon about Sagrada Família.

That’s what I say to people after they ask “What do you do?” And after I respond “I’m making a documentary,” and after they reply, “What’s it about?”

It’s a story that’s never been told is the takeaway. That’s what inspired the idea, and it was an idea that struck me about 4 years ago, when I realized that I’d been living in Barcelona longer than I had anywhere in the world other than the town I grew up in in the United States.

At that moment, I also realized that, in spite of reaching this milestone, I knew nothing of Barcelona. So I resolved, in the next moment, to begin reading books and watching films focused on the city’s history.

I very quickly discovered that for a person without Castilian or Catalan language skills, there’s next to nothing out there. In terms of books, there are few.

As shown in the GIF, there’s Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, Robert Hughes’ Barcelona, Chris Ealham’s Class, Culture and Conflict in Barcelona, Simon Harris’ Catalonia is Not Spain, and Colm Tóibín’a Homage to Barcelona.

They’re all quite good, and a pleasure to read. They were all a huge help in researching for the Catalunya Barcelona documentary series. However, five books is not a lot of material, and as you can tell from the titles alone, most are focused on a specific moment in time, or a specific angle.

That’s really everything, other than what you’ll find in Wikipedia. As for film, while there are 10,000+ travel videos–and rightly so–focused on Barcelona, they’re travel videos. You don’t get much further than Gaudí and tapas–and rightly so.

The one filmic exception is a 1983 documentary series produced by Granada Films, entitled The Spanish Civil War. A remarkable film, but not specifically about Barcelona.

I was shocked by the dearth of material available in English. The dichotomy struck me. From my perspective, everyone in the U.S. loves Barcelona, yet, at once, nobody in the U.S. knows anything about Barcelona. And in the next moment, I made a decision: If I ever have time, I’m going to make a documentary that tells the story of Barcelona to the English-speaking market. The opportunity presented itself in the spring of 2017.

But getting back to 2014’s importance: 20+ years after the Olympics, it was the year rent controls was finally lifted. This put the quaint, locally-owned storefronts–grocery stores, fruit stands, cafés–at a crossroads. Pony up or move on. On the one hand, they’d known decades in advance that the date was coming. On the other, if your economic engine is a fruit stand on Rambla de Catalunya or Carrer d’Enric Granados–two of Spain’s most expensive streets–eking out a margin is a stretch, even with decades to prepare.

Five years on, these streets have changed dramatically. New storefronts come and go on Rambla de Catalunya and Carrer d’Enric Granados with relative frequency. European and international holding companies have leased the storefronts, and the mom and pop shops have been replaced by franchises. They all have a sameness to them, a transient strip mall ethos, and, indeed, since they’re stores that snap together, they can be swapped out quickly.

There are more McDonalds, more Taco Bells, more Starbucks. It’s impossible to say this doesn’t diminish the charm of these streets. A Starbucks is not charming. A Starbucks is predictable. A Starbucks is a Starbucks.

Starbucks is a useful example, even if one’s loathe to use it as such–if only because doing so has become a cliche. It’s useful because Starbucks did not fill a void. There has never been a shortage of great coffee in Barcelona. Still, the number of Starbucks in Barcelona continues to increase. Now there are 20, with two on the short Rambla de Catalunya promenade.

Yet, like it or not, this is the natural order of things. A city grows more popular. Property values increase. Rents increase. More residents, more visitors, and more businesses vying to sell goods and services to those residents and visitors.

But getting back to 2014, Attorney Meritxell Campmany, during her interview with the Catalunya Barcelona film team, explained why 2014 is so notable in this regard.

And though we may not like it, though demand tends to make cities, at once more expensive, more overcrowded, and, simultaneously, more boring, it’s hard to do anything to stop it, because it’s difficult to identify a villain. Salaries in Spain are low. Many of the people, the property owners, whose buildings are being gobbled up and spun off as commercial entities are far from wealthy. Often, it’s a building that’s been in the family for generations, and owing to location, its value has taken a quantum leap.

And who can blame them for selling, or agreeing to jack up the rent, disrupting tenants’ lives, and forcing mom and pop storefronts to shutter their doors?

When someone offers you a sum–often a life-changing sum–that will improve the welfare of your entire family, it’s hard to say, “No,” and drawing on the better angels of our nature, forgoing such an offer to “preserve the neighborhood’s authenticity” takes an iron will and a martyr’s piety.

This is the first post and it’s about a street concert today. That’s the name of it in the title. This concert is a 12-hour event. They started at noon, end at midnight. The English translation of the site is that it starts at 12am and ends at 12pm, which is exactly when it’s not happening. I heard of it through Lluis Cabrera, who I met during the filming of Catalunya Barcelona. We interviewed him twice. The first time on the recommendation of Ramon Alberch, another interview subject (who was also interviewed twice). The second, I asked him to come back to discuss the events of September 20, 2017, as it had just happened, and October 1st hadn’t.

I contacted him a few days ago and asked if he’d like to watch an episode. I’ve been doing a very boutiquey road show where I show up at people’s home or office to show them and episode, ideally one in which they’re featured prominently.

During the discussion he told me this was happening on Saturday, down in Sant Antoni. Lluis founded the Taller de Mùsics in 1979, so this was the 40-year anniversary concert. I walked there, and watched and listened for about an hour. The sun was getting hot and I didn’t think to bring a hat. But it was a blast.