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The Mercat del Peix on Wellington Street was the first wholesale fish market in the city of Barcelona. Inaugurated in 1931 to meet the needs of the population and the healthiness of the fish consumed until then by the city’s citizens, it was completely renovated in 1953, remaining active until 1983.
Like all cities with a beach, the first fish market was an open-air area, first in the place where fishermen beached their fishing boats and offered the caught fish either from the boat itself or on the sand on the beach.
Although in ancient times it was a traditional and normal way to carry out transactions at the foot of the boat by the fisherman himself offering his daily catch, over the years and to avoid the visit of curious onlookers who came more to look than to buy, They decided to look for a piece of land close to the beach where they would meet in small stops with the fish placed in some reed elements so that it could lose excess water.
With the passage of time and the obligation to sell the product with a minimum of sanitary measures, the authorities looked for a place close to the landing and thus the first covered fish market in Barcelona was born.
At the turn of the century this activity moved to the Ribera Market which, in those times, was a neighborhood market and was not considered a central market.
This solution, which at first seemed correct, was not so correct when the authorities decided to convert it into the Born Central Market.
El Born as a central fruit and vegetable market had a limitation, so the need arose to find another location for the fish, since El Born was small and was not equipped for the movement of highly perishable products such as fish.
It was decided to find a specific site, since not only the arrival and departure of the fish had to occur but also the problem of conservation had to be solved.
The place chosen was the premises used as the railway material gallery for the Universal Exhibition of 1888, known as the Gallery of Machines, located on Wellington Street, adjacent to the Ciutadella Park, current Wellington Street.
The area was redeveloped with the extension of Wellington Street to Paseo de Circunvalación, near the core of railway tracks that left and arrived at the Francia station.
The redevelopment of the area caused the Machine Gallery to be divided into two parts:
The premises resulting from the division were given a façade that remained until its transfer to the new facilities of the new Mercabarna central market.
The new building with a completely new façade that entered service as the Barcelona Fish Market in 1931 and was the first wholesale fish market in the city.
The enlargement of the city blew up the initial forecasts that caused it to be demolished in the 1950s. A new, more modern building was built with sanitary conditions in line with modern times, which was inaugurated in 1953.
It was active until 1983, due to the transfer of all the city’s central markets to the new facilities in the Free Trade Zone of the Mercabarna central macro market.
A concentration of the different old markets of the city with an area of ??90 hectares, in which more than 700 companies in the agri-food sector operate and which include the old markets of the old central slaughterhouse of Barcelona, ??the central fruit and vegetable market , the central fish market and Mercabarna-flor.
