Building Barcelona

PETER G. ROWE

PETER G. ROWE BUILDING BARCELONA: A SECOND RENAIXENÇA

The fate of modern Barcelona has been and continues to be defined by a particular grasp on external events, a sense of Catalan nationalism, and by the ebbs and flows of an industrious and pragmatic-minded populace. As a provincial capital, the city has been engaged, sometimes disastrously, in the debate between the two Spains: progressive vs. backward, modern vs. traditional, secular vs. catholic, and liberal vs. authoritarian.1 It has also sought, on several occasions, to escape the geography of this debate by reaching beyond Spain and appearing to be more international. Along the way, during the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Catalanism, rooted in a reaction to eighteenth-century French hegemony and the later Peninsular War, became defined by a capitalist middle class on one side, and, secondarily, by socialism and to a lesser extent, anarchism, on another. More recently, since the Civil War and the demise of Francoism, this sentiment has been content to operate within Spain, especially among the socialists, although at times not without a strong hankering towards a kind of federalist autonomy. Leaders among Spaniards in industrialization and other facets of modernization, those in Barcelona pride themselves on being independent, hard working, commonsensical, although somewhat sentimental, and possessive of an instinct for propitious business outcomes. In short, they have—according to local parlance—seny.