Vallcarca (Barcelona) Revisited

Last year, I wrote a blog post about, and presented a sort of photographic tour of, Barcelona’s Vallcarca neighborhood: Gentrification (and Tourism) in Barcelona, the Case of Vallcarca, June 2, 2017. (Also in that post is a link to a 2015 doctoral thesis by Marco Luca Stanchieri which examines the history and current circumstances of Vallcarca in depth).

Here, I take another tour of the same barrio. It’s interesting to see how quickly the street murals fade–but, apparently, the resistence to gentrification continues and I saw no new construction sites or development.

Most of the small shops and businesses left the zone long ago, so what you see now is primarily a collection of older houses squished in between large (also older) apartment buildings. Scattered throughout are a number of empty lots–originally designated for development but now co-opted by the residents for open space…a dog park, a garden area, sports activities…or they just sit lonely, empty, and full of weeds, awaiting the eventual policy output of the city planner’s bureaucratic sausage-grinder.

The graffiti and murals, of course, is what attracts the eyeball of the occasional passing tourist on their lost and meandering way to Park Güell and, a year later, the erosion of these works of art through natural exposure to the elements is noticeable.

So, here is my 2018 tour…

A mural painted with the support of the “old Vallcarca bakery”, according to the credit at the top left. “Vallcarca for the people” is the message. On the far left is a residential door with character:

Vallcarca, #22. Barcelona, 2018

This electrified hippo-rhino-triceratops is probably the most photographed of the Vallcarca murals. The lot where you will find it, apparently an old quarry (?), has been vacant for some years with no sign of any incoming cranes, trucks, or bulldozers:

Vallcarca, #3. Barcelona, 2018

A close-up of the mural’s texture as the wind, sun, and rain extract their fee:

Vallcarca, #2. Barcelona, 2018

A pleasing sign near the hippo-rhino-tricera says, “The quarry is our neighborhood; pick up your trash”:

Vallcarca, #1. Barcelona, 2018

Across from the rhino is the Big Message: “Enough speculation…not Nuñez nor Navarro…Vallcarca is for its residents”. N and N were/are deep-pocketed, father and son developers who have had their hand in many Barcelona construction projects–and both have spent time relaxing behind bars for fraud. In Vallcarca, they are definitely personas non grata:

Vallcarca, #5. Barcelona, 2018

This lot is now being used as a dog exercise area (Clean up your dog’s mess!):

Vallcarca, #8. Barcelona, 2018

A closer view…definitely some anti-capitalist/speculation graffiti on the right. Since last year, the dog has lost much of its former luster:

Vallcarca, #9, Barcelona, 2018

“The pagan beast doesn’t pay” would be my translation. I love the little brown beastie, but what does it mean? Could the “bicho pagano” be a reference to outsiders (read: foreign tourists and speculators) who never pay the ultimate price (as do the local residents) of heavy-handed development in once-tranquil barrios?

Vallcarca, #6. Barcelona, 2018

“Nuñez out of the neighborhood!” in this small, overgrown lot:

Vallcarca, #10. Barcelona, 2018

“Neither bodies [people] nor neighborhoods are territories for conquest.”

Vallcarca, #11, Barcelona, 2018

“Let’s save the old downtown of Vallcarca…Barcelona is not for sale.” And the weird face is that of the hated Josep Luis Nuñez, former president of Barcelona’s soccer club, wealthy developer, and (briefly) jailbird:

Vallcarca, #13. Barcelona, 2018

Super artwork here. The VKK=Vietnam graffiti I couldn’t decipher. After some Googling…maybe something about a construction company???

Vallcarca, #19. Barcelona, 2018

“They won’t kick us out” and “Enough demolition” are the messages in Catalan here:

Vallcarca, #24. Barcelona, 2018

Mural details:

Vallcarca, #25. Barcelona, 2018

Lots of passion on this port of entry: “Nuñez and Navarro, guilty of the destruction of Vallcarca, we don’t forget, we don’t forgive…For a neighborhood for the people, not tourists, not hostels/hotels, nor excavators…Tourism kills the neighborhood…”:

Vallcarca, #26. Barcelona, 2018

“Let’s build the Vallcarca we want.”

Vallcarca, #27. Barcelona, 2018

I really liked this still life image–my favorite picture of the day. I found the scene in a vacant lot that is currently being used for neighborhood gardens. The well-ordered mess of the place, the Frida Kahlo portrait, and the fading mural in the back asking us to “Listen!” all come together in sort of a strange, haphazard order, all with political undercurrents: 

Vallcarca, #29. Barcelona, 2018

“If Nuñez and Navarro set foot in Vallcarca, meet here at 7pm!” The meeting point for any spontaneous protests, apparently.

Vallcarca, #30. Barcelona, 2018

Here we have King Nuñez himself seated upon the throne of his many construction projects. The stenciled note reads, “Vallcarca is not for sale; it’s not a neighborhood for speculators.”

Vallcarca, #28. Barcelona, 2018