“Without culture there is no city. We must recover the cultural ambition that made Barcelona great. Claiming its double Catalan and Spanish capital, its status as a bridge with Latin America and Europe”, said the new mayor Jaume Collboni in his inauguration speech on the 17th.
It alleviates this position a bit -obviously to outline and specify-, because an absentee of the electoral debate has been the subject of culture. And this despite the fact that, in its best moments, the Barcelona City Council has been cultural.
For Collboni it is not a new topic, since he was a councilor for this area in 2016-2017. It pays to do some memory to contextualize your step.
In contemporary times, Barcelona’s municipal management in culture, as in other areas, was socialist from 1979 to 2011. Continuity and a sense of direction facilitated numerous projects that radically changed the landscape, from the Library Plan to the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB), in which Ferran Mascarell played a decisive role, or the participation in museums and centers promoted in that period such as the MNAC, the MACBA or the CCCB. Going through the thematic years, such as the one dedicated to Gaudí, and the reformulation of popular festivals such as La Mercè.
Of course, in that long and positive period in which the city’s cultural institutions were consolidated, there were also trains that let themselves escape, such as the Thyssen collection -on which Barcelona had, at least partially, an initial option- or the Arco fair. , which our gallery owners and institutions did not see clearly while IFEMA in Madrid did.
The Trias stage (2011-2015) continued projects already started, such as the Creation Factories launched from the ICUB by Jordi Martí when he was still in the orbit of the PSC. A strong commitment was made to popular identity culture -Trias had criticized the “excess” of urban cosmopolitanism – and its most striking milestones were the completion of the Center del Born, converted into a space for combative nationalist apology at the height of the procés, and the Museu of Cultures del Món, the commitment of the councilor Jaume Ciurana after the march on Montcada street and the city of the Barbier-Mueller Museum.
The Colau period has been changeable. First, culture spent a year assigned to the deputy mayor Jaume Asens, “overwhelmed”, according to his own confession, by his multiple occupations. Then the people responsible followed one another: firstly Berta Sureda, then Collboni (from the BComú-PSC government pact until its rupture by the former).
In Ada Colau’s second term, BComú took over the ICUB (with Joan Subirats in charge, and then Jordi Martí) while Xavier Marcé, for the PSC, took charge of the “creative industries”.
In this phase, the initiatives with the most visibility were the biennials of thought and science promoted by Subirats, and in the least positive chapter, the iron and ideological opposition to the Hermitage project.
In the aforementioned stage of Collboni 2016-2017, initiatives of some weight were undertaken: the resumption of the double capital agreement was negotiated with the Ministry of Culture, established at the time by Hereu and that Trias did not renew (agreement finally closed in 2021, with a contribution to the city of 20 million euros). The agreement with the Fira on the Victoria Eugenia pavilion was discussed; the conversion of the historic Borsí into a library; the metropolitan collaboration in the dance festival.
Among the things that did not come to fruition is the ambitious creation of the House of Letters in the vacant building at 99-115 Roc Boronat. He was going to dedicate himself to the ecosystem of the book of the city; it would supposedly house the Barcelona Ciutat Literària office, the Library Consortium and an International Book Observatory, accompanied by measures in favor of publishing. “We are world leaders in the sector and we want to continue to be so,” stated Collboni, with the intention of making clear a bid for a strong city.
But the building has not yet been restored, nor are its uses clear today; the Observatori did not see the light; Barcelona Ciutat Literària has lost a lot of steam. Like the fate of the Molino or the Arnau theatre, they are pending folders for the consistory that is now being released, and which in principle fall within the sphere of responsibility of Maria Eugènia Gay. Although, in public and in private, Collboni has been heard to comment on several occasions that if one day he reached the first seat of the city council he would like to do like some French mayors, who also reserved the area of ??culture for themselves.
Will the Casa de les Lletres resurface in the mandate of whoever was its promoter? Will it coexist with the other major book project underway, the State Public Library next to the Francia station, in which the Ministry of Culture and the city council participate, but which will be managed by the Generalitat?
Matters to meditate on in a few weeks that for the mayor will not be restful, but suitable for readings like the ones we recommend in the Cultura/s supplement this Saturday, wishing our readers good books and a very good summer.
