El Born/La Ribera

The third field study of this class was an outdoor walking tour of El Born district.  In this tour, we passed el Palau de la Musica.  This “Palace of Music” was constructed in 1903 and features great concerts and such throughout the year.  Then we continued to walk through little tiny passages that are the site of the old guilds in Barcelona.  Gremis, or guilds, were core of medieval Barcelona’s economy.  They were a system of closed0shop unions with paramilitary powers, overtones of the Mafia, connections to the Church, the Corts, and the Consell de Cent.  They lasted from the 13^th to the 19^th century.  During a time of the guilds, all work was done by hand as opposed to the factories or machines that we are used to today.  Guilds were made up of a mestre with one or two aprenents.  As we were able to see firsthand in the field study, the streets and last names of people were named after guild titles or specializations.  It was intriguing to be able to see the different shops and stores and the remnants of the old guilds and what they have turned into in the modern world in which we live.  Thinking about all of this work done by hand in a time of technology and modernization is a crazy thought.  After seeing these apartments and shops, we moved on to Santa Maria del Mar.  It was a beautiful church on the water that originally housed the remains of Saint Eulalia.  I will definitely make time to go visit the inside before I leave Barcelona.  Another interesting stop on our trip was La Llotja.  This was created as Barcelona’s stock exchange at the time that money was growing in value.  Merchants began to become more important and prestigious and a true middle class was created.  La Llotja also functioned as Barcelona’s School of Fine Arts, teaching legends like Pablo Picasso and his father, Joan Miro.  The Contract Room was the oldest continuously operating stock exchange in Europe.  It was strategically placed on the water, which is symbolic as this dock is the major site of imports and exports from other countries.  El Born district was intriguing as a whole because it is filled with little quirks and hidden facts that are not so publicized to typical a Barcelona tourist.