Reopened in 2005 after some works that began in 1997, the Santa Caterina market (a kind of Asterix village in the middle of the tourist center of Barcelona, then what battles it has waged against the Romans) will be back under construction soon for a new reopening with no scheduled date yet. Two reopenings in less than 20 years, ‘pas mal’. This time, however, the planned work will not entail a temporary transfer or anything remotely similar. It will be a major surgery operation without putting the patient to sleep.
Workers and butchers (to name a random product) will share a roof during the work. The goal is to go from the current 72 stores to 50. It is for the best, say the vendors through the mouth of its president, David Barroso, and also the Institut Municipal de Mercats, through the mouth of Pere Sirvent.
This is, in a way, a supervening work. It wasn’t on the calendar. Over the last few months, eight of the 72 stores in the market have closed, not so much for lack of business, but because this is a trade in which generational change is increasingly rare. Santa Caterina is a notoriously busy market. Two and a half million people pass through its doors every year. Other markets apparently better situated would like those figures. The fact is that the merchants themselves decided to stroke the crystal ball: they asked how many in the future saw a retirement without heirs to the business. Also, of course, how many of them would prefer the opposite, to grow: that is, that their business occupy more square meters given that the demand does not decline.
This is how that figure of 50 stores came out. That exploratory survey reached the ears of the Institut Municipal de Mercats who, knowing how little straw is needed in this city to light the fire of negativity, proposed to anticipate events and there are, today, the meetings to decide how to undertake the works. It seems that there is harmony. The city council, for example, is willing to assume the cost of the new ‘stops’ that have to be built, points out the vice president of merchants, Jordi Vila. The merchants will see how they are worked on while they are still in the old one and, when the time comes, they will move.
In its own way, Santa Caterina is the Benjamin Button of markets. First opened in 1844, the decades go by and it looks younger and more muscular. The 2005 reform is well known. Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue carried out a radical transformation of the building very much in keeping with the times of architectural intoxication that from the city council sponsored the mayor Joan Clos. That same year the market was inaugurated and also what is now called Torre Glòries. A year earlier, Herzog and de Meuron premiered the unsuccessful blue triangle at kilometer zero of the Diagonal for the Fòrum.
Despite the problems initially caused by the architecture of the new market (a refrigerator in winter and an oven in summer, the air conditioning was not released until 2022), the truth is that it is difficult not to recognize a hypnotic effect on the multicolored ceramic roof of the building. But that should not (and does) overshadow what has happened there since 2005. The ‘paradistas’ do not have publicly recognized surnames such as Tagliabue, Miralles, Nouvel, Herzog or De Meuron, but since then they have carried out some feats, what was said at the beginning, worthy of Asterix. Namely.
They resigned years ago, after debating it in an assembly, to follow in the footsteps of the Boqueria, that is to say, devoting part of the commercial area to juices, ham wrappers, finger food skewers, fruit salads in plastic cups, jellies and other nonsense. It was a wise decision and, in addition, against the current, but from the looks of it, it fell short. The tourism business sometimes has unexpected derivatives. In Casa Milà (or la Pedrera, if you prefer to call it that) they discovered on one occasion that some tourist guides received incentives if, given the choice of a single Gaudí visit on Passeig de Gràcia, they chose Casa Batlló. The law in that sector is that of the jungle. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that when the groups of tourists who were shown that market on the Rambla were limited to a maximum of 15 people in La Boqueria, some guides, especially cruise passengers, headed for Santa Caterina who knows if also with the argument that it was an ‘experience’, as is said so much now, much more authentic. That is why in 2018 the sellers of Santa Caterina claimed and got that same limitation applied to them as well.
Why? Because they had other much more profitable plans under way that deserve to be reviewed from time to time. Home sales in Santa Caterina are the envy of the rest of the city’s markets. In 2021 they invoiced 600,000 euros in product distributed not only in Barcelona, but in the whole of the first metropolitan area and sometimes beyond. This was the reference market, in the past, for families from other cities around Barcelona. Before it was Muhammad who went to the mountain. Given that mobility is beginning to be different, now it is the mountain that visits the prophet and brings the fresh product to the door of the house at the agreed time.
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Santa Caterina is indeed a rarity. It is also, to put it that way that even tries to sound cultured, a resilient market. That is well underlined by Barroso, a ‘paradista’ and representative of his market colleagues. First they suffered at least three years of ‘processistes’ protests on Via Laietana. Then came the pandemic, which must be said, was stressful for the commerce sector. But in the markets it was sold like never before, 38% more than usual. Now Via Laietana is under construction. They could take this new mishap as one more curse and lower their arms, but the vendors believe that when the work is finished, Santa Caterina will come out on top in Barcelona.
Actually, you don’t have to wait. Go. Worth.