THE BORN
Text and photos by Georgina Castillo

Yesterday
Some centuries ago, in the Middle Age, the Born was a boiling place: the aristocracy of Barcelona watched the tournaments from the balconies of their palaces. The word “born” means tournament, and in Catalan refers to the place where the jousts took place. The most important of them are located in Montcada street and they are used today as cultural centers, like the Picasso Museum. Formerly people walked by those streets, where civic parties like processions or carnivals took place. The famous procession of the Corpus, with kings, magicians, angels, priests, dragons, bakers, fishermen, devils, went along these narrow streets, which were at that moment the center of the city. The merchants, artisans and peasants also met in this district, because the most important markets and fairs of Barcelona. Such croudy life was due to the special situation of the Great Portal of the roman wall, in the middle of the Angel Square, a direct access to the sea. The Born was a passing place for merchants arriving from anywhere in order to embark their products or pick up those that arrived from outside.

Today
Today the Born is a fashion place again. Long ago it was the district of merchants of deluxe products, like glass and silver objects (the names of some streets, like Vidreria or Argenteria, is a proof of it), and nowadays leisure and culture have settled here as a symbol of the new selectness. People preffer Pakistan food than hamburgers with cheese and onion. You might choose between a “cous-cous” in a terrace in front of the iron palace, which was the most important market of the city, or a minimal salad in a restaurant with white tablecloths and soft light. You may enjoy cocktails of all colors and wines from everywhere, appetizers from the North of Spain and French “fondues”. Live music in the hothouse of the Parc de la Ciutadella, jazz and alternative theater in the basement of the Malic. The Manolo bars of the Chinese district are here the Kafka cofees, the Pla restaurants or the Van Gogh bars. When you walk along the narrow streets of this district, you have the feeling that there won't be surprises, unless you meet a store, propably nameless, full of relics coming from the Golden Age of the Spanish “cutrerío” (that’s impossible to translate this word into english, so I advice you to ask a native what “cutre” means) famous all over the world for being “kitch”, colouring and visceral.

Even the smallest detail has been designed conscientiously. Stores where you don't know exactly what it’s sold. Restaurants where you don't know exactly what you may eat. Somebody has said that people who don't take a risk don't suckle, that surprises come from risks, that you must be open minded, that you must not be afraid of what’s different. I wonder if the really difference depends on what in Barcelona is called “good taste”.

Actually, the only thing you consume are atmospheres. You must seduce the costumers, you must wrap up them, you must make them feel as they take part of an exceptional decoration. “I don’t know another city”, says Robert Hughes in the most interesting Barcelona guide I have never read, Barcelona, “where you can find a "Design Guide" in which its bars, discos and restaurants are not evaluated for the quality of the food or the service, but only and exclusively for the atmosphere design?”

In a moment that businesses are made in offices, with the phone and the electronic mail, steets have become a place of culture commerce, especially in the Born, where everything is in its place, waiting quietly for somebody who could find any sense to it. Josep Maria Espinàs (writer and columnist) says that a deteriorative, wornout, and even an ugly city may be an interesting city. I would like to ask him about this district which is always in equilibrium, without any eccentricity and so much worried about its look, about being admired.

You must see
Trapped between the four sides of a square that doesn’t fit it, the Santa Maria del Mar gothic church inspires, expires, sighs, burps, stretches by raising its spires through the roofs. I believe that it’s satisfied. After being the symbol of the Mediterranean conquest by the Aragón and Catalonia reign (the sailors shouted the name of their patron, Santa Maria) and the center of the new commercial capital; after surviving to bombardments, fires and several reconstructions, it’s today an architectural temple like the others, an old glory, and she is happy. It smiles to the camera of tourists or melancholic natives and afterwards it returns to its background condition.

When you come in it you have the feeling that the whole Barcelona could fit in it. Without any unnecessary pillar, as a result of precipitate reconstructions, its interior offers a look of gigantic salon because of a beautiful integration of the three naves. You should not miss out this spectacle that will make you feel dizzy. If you have the chance to visit it when there is not a wedding or a baptizes, you will feel the most privileged human being in the world, if you allow me the grandiloquent propaganda that however Santa Maria del Mar deserves.