Sartorially speaking, Barcelona is a remarkably casual city. I remember getting mild shock when I first saw opera-goers dressed in jeans, and most women think the idea of dressing up is throwing on a colourful scarf. But once a year caution and that famous Catalan common sense are thrown to the wind for the Passejada amb barret (Walk with a hat).

Inspired by New York’s Easter Bonnet Parade along Fifth Avenue, two local milliners decided to organise a similar event here. Now in its 12th year, the format is the same as when it first started. Everyone meets at the top of the Rambla de Catalunya and when the clock strikes 12, starts strolling the kilometre or so to the end of the boulevard. That’s it. No live music or beer sponsors. Just a gathering of happy adults, kids and dogs high on the transformative, feeling of expressing yourself, in a fashion, at the onslaught of spring. 

I first went to the Passejada about five years ago. Participants could have only numbered a couple of hundred and most onlookers thought we were part of a large wedding party. In 2015, over 1500 hat-wearers dressed the Rambla de Catalunya and this year there was probably double that. For the first hour or so we just mill around, taking shots of each other and strangers whose hat takes your fancy. Absolutely nobody is camera shy – that wouldn’t be the point.

From these snaps, you can see that there is plenty of gorgeously tailored headgear, but an old beanie or creation put together with plastic teacups and a glue gun is fine to. The Passejada is about feeling comfortable with and stepping out of your own skin - even just for a day. 

(Thanks to M-A Gallagher and Scott and Jane Riley for the pics!) 

Some of my best second-hand furniture finds have come from the street. When I arrived in Barcelona, everybody seemed to have cash to splash in Spain. Ikea had just opened and every family was replacing their heavy handmade furniture for a flat pack. The old stuff went directly to the street – via a neat system of weekly ‘chuck out’ nights. The actual day differed in each barrio, so if you had the time and energy you could have your flat furnished in a week. Extra pairs of arms on call were essential for heavy stuff – I still remember bursting into tears after seeing a perfect- condition art deco lounge suite on the way home from work – and nobody available to lug it back. The collection system still exists – although now that old junk has been rebranded ‘vintage’ professional dealers with fast trucks lessen the odds of a good score.  

​MaiParacas is a shop in Gràcia that transforms found furniture in the most charming of ways. A few weeks ago I walked past it with my daughter – and we both stopped in our tracks, totally beguiled by the prettiest toy kitchen we had even seen. 

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Laia Serrats, owner of MaiParacas, explained that they are made from old bedside tables, the ugly boxy kind with large doors that every Spanish bedroom had at some point. 

​She either finds them in the street, or sometimes neighbours donate them, knowing that Laia will make it into a little girl’s - or boy’s - dream kitchen using delightful details such as minuscule sinks, kettles and stovetops. In vivid colors and 1950s textiles, they look like a kitchen Betty Crocker’s daughter would hang out in.  

​Laia transforms all manner of objects – at prices that are peanuts considering the quality and painstaking workmanship (The custom made cuinetas come in at 95 euros, almost half the price of this one from Imaginarium.) She also runs renovation workshops where you can turn your next street find into something incredibly unique. I am about to deliver a pair of rattan dining chairs for a new upholstery of African wax print and brass buttons – and I can’t wait to see the result. 
MaiParacas, Ramon i Cajal 106, www.maiparacas.com 

In search for things to do around my new neighbourhood, a friend reminded me that the Carles Taché Gallery has moved to Carrer Mèxic – a blah street in the off radar barrio due west of Plaça Espanya. I had remembered reading so on the gallery’s website, and thinking at the time that this long established gallery, headed by one of the doyens of Barcelona’s art scene, had downgraded from his previous Eixample address. At the tail end of a very protracted economic crisis, who the hell was buying art anyway? How wrong I was, as the new Carles Taché Gallery is seriously cool.

But first you need to find it. Next to the Pentecostal Church, follow the driveway around to the rear to an industrial-type courtyard and garage doors to assorted locales. One is the entrance to the gallery, an old cotton factory of 1200 metres and triple height ceilings.

Taché represents some huge names in the art world; Tony Cragg, Sean Scully, Cornelia Parker, and others whose work is only within the aquisitional realm of Russian oligarchs and hedge fund brokers. The aforementioned are on display in the gallery’s inaugural show. (It plans to host about four a year.) And although I have always considered the idea of art works ‘creating dialogue’ with each other a bit wanky, there is something uplifting about viewing perfectly composed, large-format pieces against bone white walls in a cathedral-like space.
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No one breathed down our neck as we wandered around. Three ambiguously erotic photographs by Antoine d’ Agata caught my daughter’s eye – and the gallery attendant took the time to come over and explain the artist’s working methods and influences (though she still thought’ them ‘icky.’) Taché has said that he gets the greatest satisfaction from introducing young people to contemporary art. So, round up the kids and make your way to Carrer Mèxic for your next cultural sojourn. There’s a not bad curry house next door when you are done

Carrer de Mèxic, 19, Open Tues-Sat 11am-8pm. 

When I was young, and my father had itchy green thumbs, he used to bundle us in the car and head to the ‘nursery’. This was his antiquated (even then) name for a Garden Centre.

In suburban Melbourne, these were vast expanses of land, with row upon row of indigenous, young trees that were sold in plastic bags. My father decided to ‘go native’ in our family garden, having seen his previous English garden die through drought and high temperatures. It became so thick we had to fight out way to the front door and it was eventually declared a fire hazard.

Although some residents in Barcelona, including many of my friends, have beautiful, balconies bursting with colour and lushness, balcony pride has never been my thing. But new apartment, new leaf – and a good excuse to visit the Hivernacle Centre de Jardineria, which everybody who lives west of Plaça Catalunya seemed to know about except me
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There are some garden centres dotted on the outskirts of Barcelona, but this one is Les Corts, in one of the few miniscule pockets of this central neighbourhood that still retains a whiff of yesteryear.  (I can’t decide if Les Corts was one of Barcelona’s most lovely old barris because it was, or because only tiny teasers of the old bits remain.)

A bit like the florist scene in Vertigo that segues from a dark alley to saturated, stylised colour, Hivernacle is like stepping into a much brighter, much more fragrant world. It's located in an old textile factory dating from the late 1800s, suitably decrepit to let full grown banana palms peep through the roof and support creepers over its splendid trusses. The same family has run the business for 18 years  - and were very happy to advise me how to compose a low-cost, low-maintenance balcony garden. 

Hivernacle also has a little play area for kids, and a non-stop stream of regulars with dogs. In Melbourne or Los Angeles it would also have an organic café, or hold permaculture workshops. But all the owners really want to do is sell plants – and there is no finer place to buy them in Barcelona.  

Hivernacle Centre de Jardinería
Carrer de Melcior de Palau, 32-36
Tel. 934 91 21 78

When someone dies in Spain, or at least in a Spanish pueblo, it doesn’t take long to find out. Death notices are thoughtfully posted outside the local city halls, or pinned to the exterior blinds of shops. ‘Closed Because Of A Death in The Family’, they say. Read the whole thing and you’ll get the time and place of the funeral. They always say the deceased passed away cristianamente – I am not sure if that means something like ‘of natural causes’, but presume it doesn’t describe a fatal heart attack in a high-class brothel.

On the way back from the supermarket just now, I found out the mother of the owner of a local kidswear boutique passed away yesterday. The funeral service will be held in the local church tomorrow morning. I know the family, and was able to send my condolences.  

This is the seventh death that has entered my life in the past two months, including my own mother’s. The wave has made me think about the protocol of death and how western funeral rites – the frenzy of the guest list, the catering, the video and flowers and so on – are basically designed to take one’s mind off what just happened. It delays your grief, which is perhaps not a bad thing.

Some years ago my mother got together with a bunch of her girlfriends over morning coffee. They each composed a letter of intent entitled ‘I am sorry I am dead’ – a sort of wish list to let family members know how they wanted their funerals to be. I am glad she did. We found out, amongst other things, that she wanted to be buried (being a Buddhist, we all presumed she would have preferred a cremation) which of the local funeral directors she wanted to take care of things and that she had a preference for an eco-coffin.

We probably would have gone for that anyway, but didn’t expect to be able to purchase a sleek white model made of recycled cardboard. Unlike wooden coffins, which are much more expensive, you can personalise these with your artwork or notes. Mum’s was plastered with kid’s drawings before it went into the ground.

In Ghana coffins are famously colourful; carved creations made especially for the deceased. Most of my friends there bemoan how expensive funerals are. The protracted wakes, which last for days are an enormous financial burden for families that can barely affords them. At last year’s brilliant Chale Wote arts festival in Accra, mock funeral processions poked fun at the big business and bloated displays of sentiment that Ghanaian funerals have become.

Though still on the fringe, earth-friendly coffins and caskets are an emerging industry. A quick squiz on the web reveals woollen coffins, willow caskets, shrouds and this art-deco inspired designer number.  The most radical burial concept I have seen lately comes from the Italian company Capsula Mundi. They would like to see the end of cemeteries all together, and instead place the deceased in the foetal position in egg-shaped pods made of biodegradable materials. Each grave would be marked not with a tombstone but a tree, creating what they call ‘sacred forests’. The idea is that the pod ‘seeds’ the tree, by feeding the soil with nutrients generated through the body’s decomposition.   

I own a museum piece. Actually I own two; and I sadly threw out one in the skip a few moves ago (a loopy, linen -covered coat hanger). So says Barcelona’s new Museu del Disseny (Design Museum) and I won’t argue.  My Rafael Marquina olive oil dispenser and 1970s citrus juicer (bought not so long ago in a junk shop) won’t be parting ways with me anytime soon.

For a city where a new, often privately owned, museum pops up pretty regularly, the Museu del Disseny is creating a lot of buzz, even amongst friends that don’t necessarily get a kick out of that sort of ‘thing’.  It certainly comes in an imposing package – a brutalist, hammerhead-shaped building at Glòries, the city’s new eastern ‘gateway’. Neither as colourful nor fanciful as its famous neighbours (Nouvel’s Torre Agbar and the flashy new home of Els Encants flea market), it was designed by veteran local studio MBM, the architects responsible for much of the city’s award-winning, pre-Olympic facelift. Some believe the decision to award this prime public project to them was a sign of gratitude. 

Whatever the case it’s the collections that matter. And they are great.

Spread over four floors, the exhibitions focus on the same number of disciplines: decorative arts, graphic arts, costume and industrial or ‘everyday’ design. Whilst I didn’t have time to view the decorative arts, and can’t imagine that the pieces would surpass the glorious modernista collection of furniture at the MNAC, the other three floors had me drooling. No shots of the exhibition salas have been released yet (the museum officially opens this Saturday, December 13th) but here is taste of what you will see. 

 

The Graphic Design Collection features works from 1940 to 1980, and given the relative abundance of pieces available to the collector, the curators have made the wise choice to favour quality rather than quantity. It’s a joyous ride for lovers of color, the sharp and astute forms of Spanish mid-century poster art and vintage travel posters (the early Iberia ones are a treat). 

It’s the Design Collection however that will be the main focus of the museum now and in the future (the building already hosts design-related events and conferences). As the directors rightly point out, Spain, and particularly Barcelona, has a strong history of industrial design – vacuum cleaners, ashtrays, bar stools, the minipimer  the most miraculous of all kitchen gadgets) and other flotsam of everyday life. Ricard, Tusquets, Mariscal, Tresserra – all the famous names are here, along with classics such as the BFK or ‘Butterfly Chair’ (which was, for the record, jointly designed by a Catalan) and Impala motorbike – the mode de transporte of 1970s Spanish hipsters. The collection is fun, direct and easy to understand and appreciate - just a like a good piece of design should be. 

www.museudeldisseny.cat

Appropriately enough, it was my first Spanish boyfriend who made me aware of ‘La Casita Blanca.’ Not that we ever (more’s the pity) patronised the city’s infamous rent-by-the-hour ‘love hotel’, but his apartment was situated directly behind it.  This was when Plaça Lesseps was a ‘square’ in name only, pre its award winning ‘reorganisation’ (as they call it here) when streets were widened and apartment blocks pulled down to replaced by, amongst other things, this fantastic public library. The Little White House was sacrificed in the name of urbanism.

There must have other hotels in Barcelona at the time where illicit lovers and thrill-seeking parejas could have gotten their rocks off (there certainly are quite a few today), but La Casita Blanca had slunk its way into urban folklore. When it closed in 2011, it had been operating for over 100 years, first as street level seafood restaurant with rooms to rent on the first floor where patrons, high on wine and lobster, could take a postprandial ‘siesta’. Pretty soon the napping became more popular that the snacking, and the entire building was taken over and turned into a meublé.

It was never white – in fact it was a rather ugly brown pile; bland, severe and lacking any of the adornment that graced the other fin de siècle buildings in the immediate area. The name came from the constant rotation of white sheets that could be seen at any given moment flapping from the clotheslines on the rooftop, as staff hurriedly prepared the beds below for the next guests.

It is said that unlike other love hotels used by hookers and sailors, La Casita Blanca’s clientele was the crème of Barcelona’s society. Apparently the owners had ingeniously reorganised the interior halls so as you would never set eyes on other guests, and the underground car park was remodelled so that cars could slip in and out with the utmost discretion. The luxurious rooms were ‘themed’ exotically– African, Oriental and the like and there were three buttons in each one; red to call a waiter, green for when you were ready to check out and yellow if you wished to order a taxi.

The plot where La Casita Blanca once stood is now a children’s playground. As part of the project, local street artists Sendys and Kram have painted these beguiling murals in homage to it. The Little White House is gone, but romance lives on.

*Big thanks to Yoya Busquets for the snaps! 

In 1992, when I first arrived Barcelona, I couldn’t buy an avocado. Or a mango or a bunch of fresh coriander. Tapas hadn’t been ‘reinvented’ yet, and Ferran Adriá was probably still a short order cook. The only ‘ethnic’ food you could get was dumbed-down Chinese, where you could try curious (not in a good way) things such as pan chino - a lumpy blob of tasteless friend dough.

Today there are 132,000 non-EU immigrants living in Barcelona. They have come from as far as Senegal and Syria, crossed the Sahara by bus or arrived on a long haul flight at El Prat. Wherever they have come from, others have followed. Their reasons why are diverse, but there is one thing all have in common; they want a taste of home.

Because of them, local cuisine has evolved enormously over the past decades. Sure, Adriá and his protégées have made their mark, but show me one 12-course tasting menu that doesn’t include ceviche or sushi. It’s been a happy marriage; Barcelona huge influx of migrants has created a market for budget, family run places whilst young chefs, take note of the spice, flavour and techniques of foreign lands,  experiment with them and wake up local taste buds.


Here are a few of my favourite ‘ethnic’ eateries in Barcelona. You’ll always get change from a 20 (sometimes even tenner).

*all images by Dexter Hodges 

Randa 
Despite being one of the largest migrant groups, Moroccan restaurants in Barcelona are not as common as you would think. Most are located in the Raval. Randa is situated opposite the Moroccan embassy in the Eixample, and was presumably started to nourish people after a morning’s gruelling battle with bureaucracy. Dishes are just what you’d expect in portions large enough for two: chicken and green olive tangine (my favourite), vegetable cous cous and B’sarra – a nourishing ‘breakfast’ soup of split peas. 
C/ Diputació 49, Eixample. 
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Peimong
Before Lima was declared the new food capital of the world and this restaurant in Barcelona made pisco sours and cerviche newly fashionable, this humble little place behind the lofty of facades of the ajuntament was introducing locals to coriander, tamales and Inca beer. After all these years, I find nothing more healing than a sudado de pescado (spicy fish soup) the morning after. 
C/ Templars 6,93 318 2873

After last week’s post regarding the sad closure of historic shops in Barcelona’s city centre, I thought it high time to celebrate the little pockets of the city where creative retail is having a renaissance. There are dozens of streets away from Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella where intriguing owner-run boutiques are clustering. Here is the first in what I hope will be a regular series.

Carrer Parlament is located in what was, until recently, considered a naff part of the Eixample. Now dubbed San Antoni and perhaps better known as a place where hipsters head for brunch in cafes like this and this, cute little start up shops and galleries are adding interest beyond the morning latte. 


Cottage
This enchanting florist reminds me of that famous scene in Vertigo, when Kim Novak steps from a black and white San Francisco street into a glorious Technicolor world via a flower shop. All sorts of blooms, indoor plants and pots of fresh herbs for every occasion. C/Parlament 10. Tel. 93 129 5595

Unik
I had a touch of the déjà vu when I walked into Unik. After poking around for a few minutes, I realised that Clara, the creator of these fantastic upcycled lamps, mirrors, coat racks and other items, was responsible for one of my favourite pieces of jewellery – a pendant made from an old enamel pill box. Each piece here is totally unique and has either been transformed entirely (a metal sieve to a lampshade) or tastefully repurposed (a window frame to a mirror). I want the army of small robots made from old cutlery and other bits and bobs to be my new best friends. C/ Parlament 13. Tel. 93 251 48967   

 [‘galeri ]
The fledgling [‘galeri] is a tiny space that sells a neat selection of ‘Made in Barcelona’ items. Everything here had a quality, handmade feel to it, but particularly lovely were vases made by Atuell that are as fine as folded paper and Loope leather tote bags. Co-owner Luis tells me that he plans to hold regularly shows of photography and prints, and going by the small range of both already in stock, this is one to keep an eye on. C/ Viladomat 27. 

A couple of decades ago, my first magazine story on Barcelona was about its quirky old shops. I wrote about a dusty old store in the Raval that made its own hair tonic and other barber supplies, stores that proudly displayed big cotton knickers and bras with cups large enough to toss a salad in, and one place, reportedly the oldest continuously-run shop in Barcelona, that had a pair of blackamoors inside the entrance.

All these were located within the old town, the Raval/Barri Gótic/El Born triangle that has since become the hottest tourist destination in Europe. For some time now, they have been disappearing – a disturbing phenomenon widely discussed in local media and yesterday picked up by the The New York Times.

Most of these places are/were family run and trading in commodities that have long since lost out to the internet or modern, ‘lifestyle’ stores; books, traditional toys and scratchy everyday bed linen and towels. After 20 years of rent protection, their monthly rate has risen – quite a lot. In the same period, tourism in Barcelona has exploded –and their prime stomping (and shopping) ground is the Ciutat Vella. This has created an imperfect storm. In one case, a toy trader was forced to pack up after his rent rose from 1,000 euros per month to 35,000. (It is now occupied buy Geox, which I can’t decide is a sign of just how much passing trade there is this street or how much people love those ugly shoes).

Like the story in the Times, many commentators see the disappearance of these unique historic shops as just another sign of the ‘selling out’ of the old town to the tourist dollar – and the adversity this has on local residents. However I am not sure this is true – and it doesn’t explain why many of them, such as this old nut roaster and herb trader, are still doing extremely well thank you.  Couldn’t the traditional toyshops have started to introduce ‘designer toys’ for the adult market? How about a coffee corner in those dusty old bookshops? As a New Yorker friend (who lives in Barcelona) so succinctly put it, ‘If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen’.

To me, the greater loss is one of patrimony. When a global chain takes over, you can bet your bottom euro that a leadlight shop front or wrought iron window frame will be end up in the skip lest it interfere with their brand’s I.D. So far, the city’s authorities have been pretty useless as enforcing preservation laws on commercial property (Just last weekend I went on search for one of my favorite modernista pharmacies – it’s gone). But perhaps this has always been the case. In a city where art nouveau was one of its defining artistic movements, why is there only one café and the same number of restaurants in the style still in existence? Whist in Brussels and Paris they are everywhere…