The best images of people's Barcelona

BarcelonaRicardo Feriche takes out his phone and, excited, shows a photo. "It was the day of the presentation, in the same place as the cover photo, and look, exactly the same image." Sure enough, two women dressed the same way walk through the arcades of Barcelona's Plaza Reial with a glamour equal to that of the book's cover. Barcelona. Both images are interesting because they show, on the one hand, the perspective of the curator and editor of the publication on a city that he sees as feminine and the images that represent it, and on the other, to what extent there are places and ways of being in the city that remain unchanged over time.

And despite the changes and gentrification it is undergoing, Barcelona, ​​​​as Isabel Coixet explains in the introductory text of the book, still maintains many recognizable corners that have not changed despite the passage of time.

But beyond the physical places, the buildings, the streets, the squares, what makes Barcelona unique, what makes you fall in love with it and recognize it, are its smells, its light and, above all, its people. This is precisely what this book, jointly published by La Fàbrica and the Barcelona City Council, is about. It's an ode to the people, to the citizens, to the life of the city. That's why there are no landscape photos, no cold locations. In every one of them, someone appears, people portrayed directly or in passing. Poor and rich, well-known and, above all, anonymous. People captured. "It's not a book about Barcelona but about the people of Barcelona," says Feriche, curator of this publication, which allows us to follow its evolution chronologically since 1900, guided by great photographers—from Cartier-Bresson to Català-Roca, including Misserachs, Colom, and Martin Parr—but also by photographers. Compared to the eponymous publication published in 2015, there are many new features. "Almost 60% are new photos, and many have never been published before," says Feriche. "Especially because one of the motivations for re-editing the book was to incorporate a large number of female photographers who have also left their mark on the city. From Katie Horna, Margaret Michaelis, Dora Maar, and Gerda Taro to Colita."

It's interesting to look at these images, because they undoubtedly modify and complete the way the best-known photographers view the city. All of them, however, together allow us to come to terms with a city that is what it is precisely because of the citizens who appear in its portraits.