Jordi Amat: "There is a very difficult relationship to resolve between the global city that is Barcelona and the Catalan nation."

BarcelonaA journalist from New York Times He sets foot in Barcelona. It's 1975. In the article he publishes in the American newspaper, he describes a city under construction where there was a fundamental problem: a lack of hotels. And above all, a lack of quality hotels. In 2024, the same publication writes about Barcelona, but it does so through an image: that of Barcelonans firing water pistols at a group of tourists. What happened between those two events? That's what the philologist and writer tries to find out. Jordi Amat in his last essay, The Battles of Barcelona: Imaginaries of a City in Dispute (Edicions 62), a portrait of the last 50 years of the city through its cultural touchstones. From the Olympic flame to water pistols, from Pedro Almodóvar to Woody Allen and Manolo Vital at Casa Orsola, Amat tries to discover at what point the city ceased to belong to the people of Barcelona, and to what extent a city can remain democratic when its citizens can no longer choose to live there.

Why Barcelona?

— Because it's my city, because housing has become a central issue, and I wanted to know how culture deals with the unease that is partly a result of the successful transformation of the city.

Is there a place where the discontent can be visualized?

— I've lived on Consell de Cent street for twenty years, 200 meters from Casa Orsola. And the day the professor in the apartment was told he had to leave, I found myself there, in the middle of the demonstration. I think it's an image that speaks volumes: that a petit-bourgeois like me could find myself at a protest surrounded by residents of the Eixample district and members of the Tenants' Union. It's a significant moment in the public's and institutions' awareness of the threat of the city losing its identity.

This is happening in the place he describes as "the heart" of Barcelona. Why?

— Because Ciutat Vella is no longer what it used to be. When people were told what Barcelona was, they were shown La Rambla. But the artery that had defined the modern city is no longer a place that belongs to those of us who live here. Instead, there was a significant moment in how the city perceived itself: the exhibition, from 1990 to 1991, in the Golden Square at La Pedrera, where the city proudly rediscovered the Modernism of the Eixample district. Those blocks are how Barcelona chose to project itself to the world. I think the Eixample paving stones are the city's icon.

In the 1990s, the level of satisfaction with the city was around 90%. Now it seems unimaginable.

— We are aware of the importance of the institutional transformation from regime to regime and the construction of self-government and the autonomous regions of Spain. But we have forgotten the change that democratic city councils represented. No one has consistently championed the humanization of the city. And the perception is that at that time, economic powers, liberal intellectuals, and political elites did just that, they spearheaded a process of humanization.

The highlight is the Olympic Games.

— We projected an image of ourselves to the world that made us proud. I think it's undeniable that this happened. The opening ceremony, with those waves and those orange colors, was a kind of pop evolution of a Noucentista aesthetic. It worked. And '92 was the pretext for carrying out an urban development project that had been planned for many years. I really like something Maragall said: we did it because they had already thought about it. The Muelle de la Madera (Wood Wharf) was built, the pedestrian squares in Gràcia, the revitalization of Ciutat Vella (Old City) through cultural facilities. This was tangible, and people were satisfied.

What goes wrong next?

— Many things, although some still work. But what happens when you've achieved everything you set out to do?

Wasn't anyone thinking about what came next?

— I think the aftermath wasn't planned. And that alliance I mentioned—economic, political, and societal elites—began to fracture. The economic elites have captured Barcelona. Thanks to its transformation, they started extracting huge amounts of money from the city. The feeling is that there's a growing gap between the city's success and how we, the people of Barcelona, experience it, and it's a problem we haven't found a solution to.

This will sound familiar to you:Seventeen years ago, I made this same journey, but in reverse, from Barcelona to Madrid. I was also fleeing, but I wasn't alone. I carried Esteban inside me. Back then, I was running from his father; now I'm searching for him."

— I see Cecilia Roth on the train… All about my mother It's the first of two films that I find very significant [the second is Vicky Cristina Barcelona, of Woody AllenThey recount Barcelona's ability to project itself through two cult directors, and link it to a non-problematic vision of our relationship with the city.

It coincides in time with literary phenomena such as The Shadow of the Wind, they begin tours In the city of the film and the book... You talk about the Disneyfication of Barcelona. Why?

— The term comes from an English urban planner. I want to go to Venice. And what I see is just cardboard cutouts. But why not enjoy a theme park, a cultural heritage sanitized for all audiences, and if possible, with minimal litter and no poverty? When a food market for the people of Barcelona becomes a place where tourists line up in October, it means that, somehow, the space's connection to its original function has been emptied and replaced with something else.

You point to the period of change between 1997 and 2003, and write that "a profound cultural shift took place that altered the perception of the heart of cities." Why?

— Because Barcelona, too, fell victim to the neoliberal fantasy of the end of history. And this is evident in a project as megalomaniacal and delusional as the Forum. The idea that we will solve the world's problems from our homes, that we will all be brothers and sisters... It was a project of coexistence conceived from the West, and today we know it was a sham. It stemmed from a desire for urban intervention in a specific part of the city, a way of shaping what would be built. And this is where a critical discourse about the city takes root, and a discourse challenging the city's success emerges—a harsh, solid discourse that has gradually become dominant, particularly in cultural terms. And that's why Woody Allen's film comes along, projecting a city that I'm not sure we like to see portrayed. It's unbearable that everything is so beautiful; even the prostitutes in the Raval district, photographed by Scarlett Johansson, are a pretty picture. And then it has become internationally established... A cardboard cutout image, like Disney, very attractive, but which has externalities that we are gradually understanding are depriving us of the city to which we belong.

Because many people who planned the city didn't consider something fundamental: that there should be public housing.

— There's a significant episode where Maragall wanted the housing in the Olympic Village to be social housing, and the developers said, "That's it. We've collaborated on all of this, now we want to rub our hands together." That change, which democratizes the city, is a change made by politicians and architects. It seems to me that the role of urban planners today, to humanize the city, isn't sanitation: Barcelona will only be humane when those who want to live there can.

Can a city be democratic if its citizens cannot stay and live there?

— I don't think so. A city where a high school teacher can't rent an apartment isn't democratic. A teacher embodies republican culture, represents the person to whom institutions delegate the function of educating citizens, and the fact that he can't participate in civic life normally... It seems clear to me that this tells us the democratic quality of the city is declining.

Do we worry when this happens to the middle class?

— This speaks to our biases and prejudices. If this happens to an undocumented immigrant, most people can pretend not to see it. But when it happens to someone like you, you realize that things are getting out of hand and reaching the Eixample district. And when the waters of displacement from the city reach the middle class, the very foundation of democratic societies as we know them, then there's a problem.

Is there still time to solve it?

— I'm not an expert. I want people to make money, but I don't want them to make so much from the housing sector. We know that market logic without intervention won't solve the problem. We also know that regulation alone won't work. But the truth is that speculation is now constitutionally recognized in high-demand areas. It seems to me that this is an area where intervention is necessary.

And is the book an attempt to tell the tourism sector and large property owners that they must set limits?

— I don't intend to do that, but it is a way of saying, "Address the discontent." For almost 20 years, the citizens of Barcelona—understanding it as a metropolitan city—have been saying they can't live here. Failing to address this challenge is telling citizens they don't matter. And when citizens perceive that institutions are ignoring them, they have every right, as an emergency measure, to resort to anti-systemic solutions. What legitimacy do you have to tell them to trust you when you've failed them?

Let's talk about the national question. You say that the independence movement hasn't been able to create a hegemonic discourse about the capital of Catalonia. Why is that?

— I can confirm this. More than a thousand books have been written about the Process, and I am perplexed when I think that among the supporters of independence there are not 50 who have made ambitious reflections on what the capital of Catalonia should be like in the event of independence and what its function should be.

And why do you think that is?

— I don't have a magic formula, but I do believe there's a very difficult relationship to resolve between Barcelona as a global city and the Catalan nation. They are two concepts in tension. And thinking of the city as a global city and an opportunity to incorporate foreign talent hinders the Catalanization of the city, without which I believe the possibility of making political proposals about the country is unlikely to succeed. To move forward, you need Barcelona.

A corresponding cultural movement has not emerged in the Process.

— The best culture is the one that challenges the people it addresses. What a national culture should do is try to build citizenship. And when I say citizenship, I already assume that it is critical. Culture makes you a citizen, it makes you understand the world, and when you see where the world is, you also see that there are things that aren't working. But what happens when you are committed to a political project of that ambition and culture can play this role of being critical of the process underway? Because perhaps it wears it down… In other words, what is the degree of tolerance for discourse critical of politics when the nation demands loyalty to carry out a project of that nature? It is another case, almost an aporia, that explains why a culture that offers support is a culture that hardly lays foundations.

Does this somehow connect with the idea of Pujol's nationalizing process and Maragall's cosmopolitan city?

— I think the dichotomy is a simplification, but one that's useful for explaining certain things. These are projects that coexisted for many years in tension due to the struggle for power. In both cases, I see them as attempts at civic and national mobilization that were compatible, and in fact, they were. The idea that "some have the Teatre Nacional and others the Teatre Lliure" is irrelevant. What matters to citizens is that there are two places to see good theater. I think we have a somewhat stereotypical view of Maragallism, thinking of it as being closer to Félix de Azúa, when in reality it's closer to... Maria Aurèlia Capmany.

Is he the best mayor Barcelona has ever had?

— I think it's very difficult to disagree. There's also the issue of the historical moment you were in, which is that you had to build democracy in the city, and therefore Maragall had the opportunity to carry out transformative governance. But once you've done that... then what?

In that same successful city, buses didn't reach all neighborhoods. You mention this at the end of the book, quoting the film. The 47.

— I went with my children; I wanted them to know that this story existed.This is a clear case of someone fighting for what we all know is right. Would the City Council's intervention in the Casa Orsola case have happened without the mobilization? Not a chance. If the photo of Barcelonans shooting water balloons at tourists hadn't appeared in the international press, would the City Council's awareness of the problem tourism represents be as high? Not a chance.

I mean…

— It seems to me that someone who is a member of the petit bourgeoisie, who is delighted to live in the Eixample district, and who is a member of the board of the Círculo de Economía (Circle of Economy), knows perfectly well that the city has certain problems. And without a mobilization of citizens, the institutions will hardly feel compelled to intervene as I believe is necessary. And that is why the book ends the way it does.

We didn't see Manolo Vital in 1996, when we were delighted with the city.

— Manolo Borja-Villel mounted an exhibition in 1996 at the Fundació Tàpies with this question: what happens to a city when there is such widespread consensus about its merits? Perhaps it also has a democratic problem? He then focused on everything that had been left out of the city's ring roads, and Manolo Vital emerged. What's interesting today is that the film tells us we feel orphaned by actions that humanize the city. We need role models.

There are many songs in the book. We'll close with one.

— Both towers, of Guillermo GisbertIt's a monologue from the Mapfre Tower, addressing the Hotel Arts as a pretentious little pensioner. Some things have been done there. balls Quite considerable. There's a moment when the Mapfre Tower says to the Arts Tower: "You stop talking, I now believe in progress."

Why do you believe in progress?

— Because democratic conscience demands belief that reform is possible. And to abandon that faith—that is, to believe that progress is impossible—is a condemnation for citizens. And the temptation we face is precisely this: to believe this.

Is the city its people?

— It must belong to the people. And it must mobilize when there is a conflict that makes it necessary to humanize it. Democracy gives people the tools to try to change things. These are useful tools, and we cannot stop using them.