\n\u201cA continuous mosaic of distinctive districts\u201d<\/p>\n
In this is a quote from Image Of The City Lynch is describing Boston and its many small districts that lie very close together. Although this is<\/i> true for Boston it appears to be merely coincidental and doesn’t apply to the entire city. In Barcelona the districts are smaller and there are more of them. <\/span>They all abut each other geographically and leave no space in between for a person to feel like they are \u201cin the middle of nowhere\u201d.<\/span> In each district one will find what feels like many small villages.<\/span> Within those villages one will find intimate little settings to feel at home<\/span>. <\/span>Nearly<\/span> every building <\/span>abuts a public square and at any time of day one can find people meeting there for myriad reasons. This is a stark contrasts to what I know from American cities which generally have one large park and all other <\/span>places<\/span> where one might want to see a public space is instead occupied by privately owned buildings <\/span>and plazas where meeting or simply relaxing is a crime called \u201cloitering\u201d<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n This mosaic metaphor works so well for Barcelona. If Barcelona were a mosaic I think that it would be one of fractal like repetition. One where the micro mirrors the macro and vice versa. One where in each piece, the whole is reflected.. In Barcelona one can feel the sense of the plaza in which the tapas bar resides within the tapas bar itself. One can feel a sense of the district in which the plaza resides within the plaza itself. And finally, one can feel a sense of the city in its districts, each representative of a characteristic feature of the city. La Ribera is one of the most culturally significant districts to both Catalan and Spanish people in Barcelona. And this quality of the district is no more clearly represented within itself than in Fossar de les Moreres. It is home to the site of the most celebrated events in Catalan history, the massacre and subsequent mass burial of hundreds of Catalan people who were protecting the city from the french. It was about two in the morning when I learned this from an extremely drunk Catalan couple that insisted on using the very little English they know say this to me, \u201cCatalan people, we only people who celebrar loses. Other people, only celebrar good. We celebrar bad.\u201d The plaza where the massacre took place is marked with a commemorative sculpture, a 25 foot tall bowed structure with a large flame burning on top that never goes out. On it is inscribed a poem,<\/p>\n Al fossar de les<\/p>\n moreres not<\/p>\n s’hi Enterra<\/p>\n traitor cap, fins<\/p>\n perdent<\/p>\n nostres<\/p>\n Banderes Sera<\/p>\n l’l’urn honor<\/p>\n \n or in enlgish<\/p>\n \n In the Pit of the<\/p>\n mulberry trees<\/p>\n no traitor in<\/p>\n not burried<\/p>\n until losing our<\/p>\n flags will be<\/p>\n the urn of honor<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “A continuous mosaic of distinctive districts” In this is a quote from Image Of The City Lynch is describing Boston and its many small districts that lie very close together. Although this is true for Boston it appears to be merely coincidental and doesn’t apply to the entire city. In Barcelona the districts are smaller […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1090,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[],"tags":[99],"geo":{"latitude":41.3844833,"longitude":2.1826744,"description":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1090"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFor example, in La Ribera, where I am staying, is home to most of the oldest architecture in city which is mostly medieval. This may come as a surprise because the oldest buildings in the city are over 2000 years old but in 985 most of the city was destroyed by Muslims that had been attacking the city consistently since it was taken from them by Christians in 801. Where I am staying was one of the earliest parts of the city to be rebuilt. In its medieval infancy, La Ribera was host to events such as jousting and witch burnings, the locations of which are marked and treated as tourist destinations. That being said, La Ribera is located just east of El Barrio Gotico and has considerably less tourists than any other part of the city. It represents a stronghold that locals have on culture and identity throughout Barcelona that can not be washed away even by heavy tourism and non-spanish \u201ceuropeanization\u201d.<\/p>\n