At the head of the King’s bastion, nine workers can be seen with pickaxes in hand dedicated to the hard task of demolition.
They have worked diligently; on the ground stands out at the foot of the corner a good pile of stones straddled. To the right of the photograph, another accumulation of rubble and rubble resulting from the considerable demolition that allows us to glimpse the finished facade of Les Drassanes.
The removal of the entire walled perimeter began at the Canaletes towers on this date that deserves to be remembered: August 7, 1854. It was significant that it began without waiting for royal permission, which still took a few days to be promulgated . This demand had dramatized some precedents that confirmed the unanimous desire that was building in Barcelona.
Already in 1841, the first attempt had taken effect, the result of the irresistible popular initiative and led by the citizen Llinars, who was only armed with his pickaxe to remove ash from the fabric of the border Citadel in the Ribera district.
The second attempt materialized in 1843 at the head of the Rambla, after the uprising of Prim, and was directed by the Supreme Council of the province.
The third and definitive one had a very different profile, as it gained a stature at the height of this company. No less than seven thousand workers were hired, under the direction of the architect Josep Fontserè.
It was a laudable strategy so that they could earn a wage, even if it was only six reais, the same that had been paid about ten years before; and it was a measure to counteract a generalized stoppage due to textile industrial mechanization caused by the use of the innovative selfactins. And as if that wasn’t enough, the situation had worsened after the outbreak of the morbid cholera epidemic, which was so serious that nearly ten thousand people died. The civil governor Pascual Madoz had not hesitated to take these extreme measures for the good of the people of Barcelona.
The demolition of the earthen wall lasted until 1857; what was most expected was the sea wall, the last to be erected (1555) and the last to be demolished (1881). This colossal accumulation of stone was intended in part for the expansion of the port and the construction of houses in the Eixample.
