Before the existence of the welfare state, people had support networks that took a variety of forms. Workers’ cooperatives, parish or anarchist-run schools, mutual health societies, Catholic care homes, pawnshops, non-denominational or religious choral associations: in 19th-century Barcelona they all

‘Barcelona Metròpolis’ is entering a new era with a renewed purpose: to show the city the way it really is; a capital that pushes and pulls, that leads the country and journeys alongside it, that gets its energy from it but also puts its critical mass at the service of that country, unconditionally.

“Within our mean wood / reverberate men and cities.” (Carles Riba) “Thus have cities been made: / built up slowly / with stones that yesterday were human lives: loves, sufferings that no one recalls.” (Narcís Comadira) Barcelona has not been

The sky is overcast. The photographer Pere Virgili and I walk up the last stretch of les Fogaroses that leads us to Jaume Cabré and Margarida Barba’s front door. The garden is shrouded in the dense peace of a low morning mist. We go up to his studio and start to talk, as the photographer snaps away. The conversation takes over everything.

I don’t know whether to put it down to age or headaches, but I tend to leave little bits of myself strewn all over the place, as though fearful of getting lost, or distrustful of those who govern me. Wont

THERAPIST: It’s been a while since your last visit! BARCELONA: Oh, it’s because I’ve been having a great time, everyone’s been so nice. Everywhere I went I was like the carnival queen. It was like those abstract painters that nobody

It is not polite to air a lady’s distress, so I will spare you the details of the night that Catalan philosophy went to A&E suffering from a panic attack. Nevertheless, given that it is a matter of national interest,

It took a while for melodies from distant lands to reach my shores. The Italians were the first to give me the gift of opera, initially at the Palau Reial and then at the Teatre de la Santa Creu. The

–I would ask you to tell me the whole story right from the start, but you’ve forewarned me that there’s a money issue, and I charge by the hour. –That’s right. I don’t have deep pockets. As a city, I

–Lovely enchantress, here we are again. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like to sit on the chair or the couch? You’re panting, your tongue’s hanging out. –My tongue… yes. They say I’m a multilingual city. –Multilingual? Saying you’re a multilingual

Bartomeu Robert i Yarzábal (Tampico, 1842 – Barcelona, 1902) was an unusual character. Commonly known as Doctor Robert, he turned local politics in Barcelona on its head for the seven months that he led the City Council, a period that

They say that even José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, towards the end of his term as Spanish prime minister, went onto YouTube to see Españistán. Este país se va a la mierda (or “Spanistan, This Country is Going to the Dogs”),

Her letter of introduction to the world of the silver screen, Tres dies amb la família (Three Days with the Family), came out in 2010 and positioned her as one of the most promising new directors in Catalan cinema. It

Now and again, someone in India asks me if Barcelona is the capital of Spain. As I don’t want to disappoint them, I always say yes, and they put on that “I knew it” face. The urge to be a

If there’s one benefit of wiki communities, it’s that they can start up with a tiny budget and grow spectacularly in a very short time. It’s all about having a good idea and carrying it through at the right moment.

Lost & Found is a fair that promotes contact between people who don’t know each other. Max Porta, one of the driving forces behind the project, together with his colleague Diego Albanell, explains that the idea flowered from conversations around

Maite Oliva, the driving force behind Wikiartmap, tells us that it all began three years ago when she was curating a series of open-air photography exhibitions and realised that there was no tool for disseminating the creative work that is

() Al desembre del 2010 a la família Sala li va caure el regal d’una bona idea

() Fònics 2.0 es defineix com una formació musical dinàmica que selecciona els intèrprets a través d’internet

Banys de mar Paco Villar Barcelona City Council Barcelona 2011 214 pages In 1989, Paco Villar began to delve into Barcelona’s stories with his articles in El Periódico newspaper about the Casino de l’Arrabassada, l’Avinguda de la Llum, the Café

Barcelona balla Ferran Aisa Editorial Base and Barcelona City Council Barcelona 2011 347 pages A glance at the list of shows staged between the 1930s and 1980s clearly shows that Barcelona has always loved dancing. Ferran Aisa learnt the foxtrot,

Vides privades de la Barcelona burgesa Lluís Permanyer Angle Editorial Barcelona 2011 272 pages In one of the over 200 photos in Vides privades de la Barcelona burgesa [Private Lives of Barcelona’s Middle Class], renowned photographer Pau Audouard immortalises the

Muriel stopped. He started to run towards her, but after a few steps he stumbled over a root and fell outstretched onto the sand

Barcelona has unintentionally become one of the world’s leading cities when it comes to emotional education. I say unintentionally because it has never explicitly set itself this goal, although it has given its support to many groups that have. For