At the municipal meeting on November 23, 2018, the same day that the Barcelona City Council approved the posthumous awarding of the city’s Gold Medal to Montserrat Caballé, the then deputy mayor Gerardo Pisarello accepted the request of the leader of the socialist group, Jaume Collboni, so that both the Catalan soprano and the late Queen singer, Freddie Mercury, named various spaces (streets, squares, gardens…) in the Catalan capital. Five years later, and with Collboni already occupying the mayor’s office, this commitment is closer to becoming a reality. The two performers from Barcelona, ??the song written by Mercury in 1987 that became the official anthem of the city that a few months earlier had been chosen as the host of the 1992 Olympic Games, will have a space dedicated to their memory in the new Plaça de les Glòries, which is still the final stretch of its redevelopment.
The Councilor for Sports, David Escudé, confirmed yesterday that the nomenclator’s report will study “the best possible location” for a road dedicated to the two artists. It is not an easy task: the list of people and events that the Barcelona City Council wants to commemorate with a street or square is long. There are so many names deserving of this distinction that there is a collapse that is difficult to resolve, especially if there is a shortage of new developments, as usually happens.
Escudé indicated that Caballé and Mercury will also have a sculpture, which will surely be installed at the point chosen for the new entry to the nomenclature. In this sense, Plaça de les Glòries, where it is also planned to place a sculpture dedicated to Ildefons Cerdà, the inventor of Barcelona’s Eixample, will meet the best conditions once the works that have been going on for years are finished are carried out there.
The recovery of the proposal formulated by Jaume Colboni five years ago came to light yesterday when it became known the auction of the manuscript of the song Barcelona and the intention of the City Council, expressed by the Councilor for Sports, to participate in it.
The document, written in English and Spanish, consists of two pages and the original is accompanied by 24 typed copies in English and 17 copies of an alternative version of the city. This manuscript is one of the thousands of objects belonging to the British singer that Sotheby’s auctioned yesterday in London. The starting price was set at 20,000 euros. Finally, the City Council was unable to acquire lot 260, which among other objects included this endearing piece of paper.
The lot was awarded for a little more than 66,000 euros, a figure well above the maximum price of 30,000 euros that the City Council could pay. This price was set based on public appraisal reports that determined the value of these pieces based on their heritage and symbolic relevance. The City Council could present this maximum offer, but not participate in the tender.
