el born, 15 de setembre: museu barbier-mueller d'art precolombí, basilica de santa maria del mar

The title of this post is long, so I only wrote the Catalan. The English translation would be: “El Born, Sept 15: Barbier-Mueller Pre-Columbian Art Museum, Saint Mary’s Basilica of the Sea”.

Tuesday the 15th was a rainy day, which to my “I want to explore Barcelona” mood translated into “Go see a museum!” I went to the neighborhood of “El Born” with a few friends, intending to go to the Museu de la Xocolata (Chocolate Museum), but it was closed on Tuesdays. Wandering down the famous Carrer de Montcada (Montcada Street), we ran into the Picasso Museum, but the line to enter was too long to tolerate given the weather. Luckily, we found the Museu Barbier-Mueller d'Art Precolombí (Barbier-Mueller Pre-Columbian Art Museum) across the street, and with admission at just 1.5 euros for students we figured it was worth a look around. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but here's a shot of the museum entrance:



The museum has sculptures, ceramics, fabrics and ritual objects from the pre-Columbian civilizations that inhabited the Meso-America, Central America, Andean America, and the Amazon regions, though the collection was far more extensive in its coverage of the first two regions. It was fascinating: casual objects like jugs, axes, and pots were intricately crafted from stone, ceramics, and other materials, and I found the craftsmanship to be downright inspiring. The museum also does a good job of providing context, with signs in each room detailing generally the civilizations from which the works were drawn from. Ever heard of a “censer”? I thought the museum was incorrectly translating the Spanish “incensor” to English, but as we inferred from observing the various censers displayed, it’s a vessel for burning incense. The censers were some of my favorites from the collection; at first glance they seem more like medium-sized sculptures, and only later do you notice the subtly placed holes. Given the low admission fee, short time to cover the whole museum (about 1 hour), and uniqueness of the collection, I’d definitely recommend this museum.

Afterwards, my friends had to go but I continued to venture through El Born on my own. My guidebook showed me that the Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar was nearby, so I went to check it out. This Basilica is one of the most famous churches in Barcelona, right up there with Cathedral La Seu and La Sagrada Familia, and according to the Spanish government’s Barcelona tourism site, it is the only perfectly-finished Catalan Gothic church, a style distinct from European Gothic. The 2006 book “La catedral del mar”, by Ildefonso Falcones, is set in the context of the church’s construction in the 14th century, at the height of the Inquisition. Can you believe it was built in just 55 years? As I hope my photos reflect, the church is a marvelous work of art and architecture:



Next, I saw the Fossar de les Moreres, a plaza that memorializes the defenders of Barcelona during the siege of 1714 and was built over their cemetery.



The Catalans have been at strife with the Castillians for much of the history of the two regions, but perhaps the most decisive blow against Catalan independence was struck during the War for Spanish succession, which pitted the Castillians & Philip V of Spain (allied with the French) against the Catalans & Archduke Charles of Austria (allied with the British and Dutch). September 11, 1714 marked the end of the siege of Barcelona and of the war, and the beginning of centuries of suppression of Catalan autonomy that did not truly end until the death of Franco in 1975. The end of the war also marked Spain’s evolution from a loose alliance between kingdoms with a shared monarch into one centralized state. The date is commemorated in Catalunya as “La Diada”, the National Day of Catalunya, in honor of the Catalan national identity and in memory of the glories of the past. At the memorial, there were many flowers and other adorning tokens, but only now, writing this, do I realize that they had been placed there on La Diada itself, which had passed only 4 days ago while I was in San Sebastián.




The text of this plaque is also written in much larger font along the red wall you see in the earlier picture; I translate it as:

“In honor of the Martyrs of 1714. In the Fossar de les Moreres there is not buried any traitor: until [the day] we lose our flags it will be the urn of honor.”

Discussing it with a Catalan speaker using Spanish as an intermediary, we agreed that one could interpret the metaphor thusly:

“No one buried in the Fossar de les Moreres considers him/herself a traitor. Until Catalunya ceases to exist (in any form, not just as an independent state), this will be a sacred place.”

Solemn, powerful words.

I continued to wander around El Born, then went to the area around the Arc de Triomf to enjoy the statues and buildings nearby. The Mercat del Born is the historic market of the Born neighborhood, but apparently has been closed for renovations for quite a while, as the banners in the subsequent pictures denounce.

The statue that follows is in honor of Francesc Rius i Taulet, a mayor of Barcelona who did many great things for the city, which are summarized by the engravings. If you can understand Spanish, the Wikipedia article about Rius i Taulet does a good job of summarizing his achievements.