La Barceloneta

La Barceloneta is my favorite neighborhood in Barcelona. I “discovered” it while doing research for my book Don Bonocio Llenza Feliú: From Barceloneta to Barceloneta (Spanish title: De la Barceloneta a la Barceloneta: La Historia de Don Bonocio Llenza Feliú, Catalan title: Des de Barceloneta fins a Barceloneta:La Història de Don Bonocio Llenza Feliú).

It is both an old port and a new port --- Port Olímpic was built in the district for the 1992 Olympic Games, and it now contains a marina with beautiful park, some amazing public sculptures, along with a number of bars and restaurants---many of which, like the are a bit on the pricy side, catering to the thousands of locals and tourists who flock to the sandy beach on any and all sunny days throughout the year. Still, it is still one of the best places to eat seafood in the city.

The first inhabitants of la Barceloneta arrived there in 1755. It was from the beginning the maritime area of Barcelona with activities and craftwork related to the port and the sea. The neighborhood was roughly triangular, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea. At the plaza of Barceloneta (Plaça Barceloneta) is Sant Miquel del Port church ---the first building completed in la Barceloneta in 1755.

Around 1791 small shipyards employed many families from la Barceloneta. During the 19th century, these families, like the Missé, became powerful shipbuilders, working on projects, sometimes risky, such as Narcís Monturiol’s pioneering wooden submarine Ictíneo, constructed in 1858–1859. La Barceloneta started to attract industries because it was located outside the city walls, near the port. This is why many important companies in the 19th century ---such as la Nueva Vulcano (which build the first steamboat on the Spanish Peninsula in 1839), La Maquinista Terrestre i Marítima ironworks, la Catalana Gas or Farga Lacambra copper company --- set up here. Because of this la Barceloneta is considered as the birthplace of Catalan industry.

The neighborhood is full of character. The blocks here are long and narrow --- architects planned them that way so that each room in every building fronted a street. The streets end at the Passeig Marítim (seafront promenade) of Barceloneta beach, one of the finest urban beaches in Europe.

More of my photos of la Barceloneta can be via my Flickr link.

Barcelona Street Art

Graffiti, paste-ups, stencils, stickers... Any type of street art can be found on the streets of Barcelona. “Underground over ground” art makes every corner of Barcelona extraordinary and endlessly inspires me. Here are two examples I have captured.  Please use the link to my Flickr account to see more.

Pau Casals i Defilló

Sculpture of Pau Casals located near the house where he was born in El Vendrell

Pau Casals i Defilló (December 29, 1876 – October 22, 1973), best known in his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Catalonian cellist of world reknown..

Casals was an ardent supporter of the Spanish Republican government. After its defeat in 1939, Casals vowed not to return to Spain until democracy had been restored, although he did not live to see the end of the Franco dictatorial regime.

Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia. His father, Carles Casals i Ribes (1852-1908), was a parish organist and choirmaster. He gave Casals instruction in piano, violin, and organ. At age four Casals could play the violin, piano and flute. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the cello performed by a group of traveling musicians and formed an instant creative connection with the instrument.

Casals often spoke and wrote of his mother as the person to whom he owed his entire musical career. In 1888 his mother, Pilar Defilló de Casals, who was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico of Catalonian parents, took him to Barcelona despite her husband’s pessimistic lack of support for their son’s future as a musician, where he enrolled in the Escola Municipal de Música. There he studied cello, theory, and piano. He made prodigious progress as a cellist; on February 23, 1891 he gave a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of fourteen. He graduated from the Escola with honors two years later.

Apel • les Fenosa i Florensa

“There is no difference between poetry and sculpture.”

Apel • les Fenosa i Florensa (Barcelona, May 16, 1899 - March 25, 1988) was a Catalan sculptor with a deep creative connection to El Vendrell. Fenosa began his studies at a municipal school in Barcelona and worked at the studio of the sculptor Enrique Casanovas.

In 1921 he settled in Paris, his genuine anti-militarism prompting him to leave Catalunya in order to avoid performing his military service. The Spanish Civil War kept him in exile until the late 1957. In 1982, Is granted Gold Medal of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the following year Legion of Honor granted by the French government.

The Apel • les Fenosa Foundation is housed in the Casa del Portal del Pardo in the town of El Vendrell, which had first captivated the sculptor in the late 1950’s during a trip throughout Catalunya after a long absence. The house was Fenosa’s summer studio until his death in 1988.

Blanes

The town of Barceloneta, Puerto Rico was founded by Don Bonocio Llenza Feliú on July 1, 1881. Don Bonocio Llenza Feliú was born in Blanes, Catalunya. While there is no monument to him in Blanes, it is not difficult for the imagination to capture his early life in a coastal town which was the center of ship-building and fishing in the 19th century. Blanes is located in Catalonia on the Costa Brava. The first settlers are thought to have inhabited the area as far back as the third century BC and archaeologists have excavated the remains of houses from the first century BC. The town thrived as a ship building centre in the 19th century but its fortunes declined in the first half of the 20th century, particularly during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) when the local population suffered bombing, famine and repression. Modern tourism arrived in the 1950s and over the next 20 years Blanes started to flourish once again, developing into a popular international holiday destination. Back from the seafront you'll find evidence of a town steeped in history, with ancient monuments, churches and buildings still standing as reminders of this area's past.

A few photos that capture Blanes (more to be added shortly):

Casa Defilló Amiguet in Mayagüez

On Friday, the 9th of October 2009, through the generous assistance of Dinorah Rodríguez Torres, from the Office of the City of Mayagüez Property Management, and with the support of Hon. José Guillermo Rodriguez, Mayor of the City of Mayagüez, I was able to visit the historic home at 21 Calle Mendez Vigo where Pilar Defilló Amiguet, mother of Pau (Pablo) Casals, was born on November 11, 1853. The house was built in the 1840’s in the colonial neo-classic style and was the center of much social and cultural activity during Pilar’s childhood. The house is currently closed to the public but plans have been put forward to transform it into a museum. With many original features still intact, it was not difficult for me to imagine the Defilló Amiguet family living in the center the growing city of Mayagüez in the 1850’s.

I have included a few of the many photos that were taken.  More will be shared in later posts as I continue to piece together the Puerto Rican childhood of Pilar Defilló Amiguet.

Bija: The Architect of Memory

Arcihect Alfredo Wiechers, known as Bija to his family and friends, was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. After completing his studies at L'École Speciale d'Architecture" in París in 1905, Wiechers lived in Barcelona where he worked for the renowned architect Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia who became his mentor. The book explores the archectural influence Barcelona had upon the construction of modern Ponce, Puerto Rico. Wiechers returned to Ponce in 1911 and infused all his projects ---hotels, stores, homes, mausoleums and factories, with a creative mixture of distinctively Catalan elements and inventive solutions to tropical environment. As most of his clients were prominent Puerto Rican families of Catalonian origin, memories of Barcleona and Catalunya dominate his creative thoughts and work. Today, Ponce is still known as “Little Barcelona” due in large part to Wiechers work, most of which still stands today as a tribute to Catalonian influence in the Caribbean.