The problem of public urinals has been around for a long time and is still ongoing. And it has not been resolved as it should, but also some solutions or certain occurrences have suddenly emerged that instead of solving it contribute to dominating the controversy of each moment, and nothing more.
In walled Barcelona, certain houses had a cup to relieve themselves, nestled in a corner of the hallway and just behind the portal. Certain municipal architects, aware of the problem, planned some model, but the proposal came to nothing. The same outcome happened to the young Gaudí, despite it being a commission: he came to draw a stand selling flowers with this public service incorporated. No way. This idea was recently considered, in order to convert one of the flower shops on La Rambla that closed some time ago into such a service.
In the heat of the Universal Exhibition of 1888, the City Council was aware that the probable invasion of foreigners had to be attended to in their physical needs. And he decided to buy a Parisian model: the Vespasiana, which deserved to be placed in many strategic and noble points.
The French writer Henri de Montherlant, when he was not yet famous, came to Barcelona. It was 1924. The city inspired a novel centered on the Paral·lel but above all on El Molino: La petite infante de Castille And it begins with this spiteful manner, while the protagonist heads down the Rambla: “Six hundred thousand two hundred souls and a single urinal ”. Caramba! It was true that they had eliminated Canaletes' vespasiana, but the funny thing was that there was already at least one urinal under the monument to Pitarra: it had caused such anger among his relatives that they challenged the City Council to take the work elsewhere. Neither the service was closed nor the seated Pitarra was moved.
This photograph was taken in 1934. It is important to know that the following year the possibility of taking the monument to Montjuïc was considered. I suspect, however, that these fences that besiege it did not in any way reveal that the path up the mountain began. I suspect, however, that it was precisely just a matter of expanding the underground service. In 2005, a thorough renovation was carried out, despite the fact that Mayor Clos had warned us that we had to leave the house under the influence (pixats). Aware?
