Every year around 15 million tourists spend the night in Barcelona, spending more than 1,100 euros per person here. That's the good news. The least good thing is that the city, aware that 14% of its GDP is contributed by tourists, is transforming itself to please them. When this transformation blurs Barcelona's urban charm, perhaps they will no longer want to come. We will see.
The first artery colonized by tourism was the Rambla. Upon hearing about the most beautiful street in the world, tourists came in droves, showing off their best tattoos. Result: crowds, Mexican hats, jugs of sangria and a Boqueria in which meat and fish give way to soft drinks and chopped fruit. Passeig de Gràcia is now another great objective for tourism. Its 1.3 kilometers in length and 40 meters in width still protect it from collapse. But its modernist jewels attract more and more visitors. The number of terraces has grown. Tour buses come and go. The flow of black vans and taxis in front of the hotels does not stop.
Paseo de Gràcia has been many things. It was a path that linked the walled city with Gràcia. It was a popular leisure space with gardens, theaters and roller coasters. Then, the Eixample fever led to its construction, filling up at the end of the 19th century with mansions for aristocrats and bourgeoisie, attracting countless Barcelonans to this walking area.
Modernism, at the beginning of the 20th century, gave character and brilliance to a plot constructed sometimes by discreet master builders. The social competition between the chocolate maker Amatller, the textile entrepreneur Batlló and the doctor Lleó i Morera was reflected by the architects Puig i Cadafalch, Gaudí and Domènech i Montaner, with their buildings in the block of discord. But the jewel in the crown would be the Pedrera, a residential building that Gaudí conceived as a wave of stone. It now houses an exhibition hall, a museum to understand its author and a magical rooftop.
That Passeig de Gràcia with great modernist works is still the same today. With many modifications and few architectural innovations. The modifications abound on the ground floors and on the cornice, leaving the bodies of the buildings almost as they were. The banks and cinemas from the mid-20th century have disappeared from the ground floors. They are replaced by franchises of global brands, with glass windows, shiny metal and lines of tourists waiting for a security guard to be kind enough to let them in and spend their money.
Among the modifications on the cornice, we will mention private lifts and hotel terraces. Removals have proliferated since the very rich want a pied à terre in Barcelona. Some are politely set back; others appear shamelessly on the street. Some blend in with the old façade; others, cubic like a large roof house for the doorman, are surrounded by palm trees.
In addition to this old architecture so thoroughly, Passeig de Gràcia has incorporated new features. Like the Mandarin apartments and Casa Seat, work on Diagonal by Carlos Ferrater (so is the one on the corner of Rosselló). Or, near La Pedrera, the supposed tribute that Toyo Ito pays him: a mask to cover a previously ugly facade; another wave, this one metallic. We would be in a bad way if these taxes were multiplied, without the subtlety of the neighboring Banca Catalana de Tous i Fargas.
Modernist, contemporary or renovated - like Casa Pascual y Pons, by Enric Sagnier, which preserves its exterior appearance, but now houses 500 Apple employees; or like the Roca Jewelry, signed by Josep Lluís Sert in 1934, which was later occupied by Rolex and soon, Swatch, and having lost its aristocratic, bourgeois, banking or film-loving profile, the architecture is what sustains the character of Passeig de Gràcia. Another thing would be if it still stands as a great street.
In 1995, urban planner Allan Jacobs included Passeig de Gràcia in his work Great Streets, which selected the best streets in the world. Because - according to him - every great street is a place where you want to spend time, live, play and work, since the best streets are those that bring people together. Can that be said for much longer about a Paseo de Gràcia reduced to a tourist attraction?
