The Sagrada Familia closes the debate: Barcelona prevails over Madrid
BarcelonaThirty-four years later, Barcelona is once again dazzling the world while Madrid sees that three decades of turbocapitalism and concentration of resources and power have not served it to shorten distances with the Catalan capital when it comes to achieving a global impact like that of 1992. Thirty-four years later, Madrid not only has not had Olympic Games, but has had to see how the blessing ceremony of the tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Família by Leo XIV takes all the praise and headlines in the world press and leaves in an absolute background the visit of the same Pope to the Spanish capital a few days before. And this without going into comparing the quality of what has been seen these days in Catalonia (cathedral, Lluís Companys stadium, Brians, Montserrat and Sant Agustí) with the events in Madrid, particularly the performances with an evangelistic air from the Santiago Bernabéu.
Madrid has only been able to be competitive in one thing, crowds, due to the great firepower of religious education in the capital of the State. But Madrid has neither a cathedral with Romanesque roots, nor a millennial monastery, nor a modernist architectural masterpiece of the magnitude or magnetism of the Sagrada Família, which today is already a world icon. One might think that Madrid had already lost the game before it started. But it was not so evident that it would lose by a landslide. And this is because, beyond the organizational capacity of one and the other or the artistic sensitivity and sense of spectacle typical of Catalans, this visit has highlighted something more: a clash of models that is also a clash of worldviews.
The Madrid model is based on accumulation, on infinite growth, on the belief that quantity always ends up prevailing over any quality. In this sense, few cities in the world can offer such a massive welcome to a Pope as Madrid, which aspires to be a kind of European Miami. But if the great idea you can offer the world is that of two radio announcers narrating a supposed football match with that carajillo-like air that is its hallmark, then something is wrong. What happens is simply that, in Madrid, they didn't think they would have to try harder because they believed that being... Madrid was enough.
City of wonders
On the other hand, Barcelona is a city that has always had to strive to stand out within a state that has historically been hostile to it. For this reason, unlike Madrid, its main monuments have been built with private capital and the City Council has had to invent major events to overcome old constraints: from the 1888 Exhibition to that of 1929, passing through the Games and the Forum. Barcelona is, in effect, a city of wonders because it has had to make its own way and has always had a clear awareness that opportunities must be seized, because no one gives anything away for free in this world.
It is surprising that it seems as if Madrid has now discovered the power of attraction of the Sagrada Família and, above all, that it has become aware that such a work cannot be bought. Gaudí's building seems designed for the era of TikTok and Instagram, it is unbeatable because it is unique and inimitable. That political leaders like Isabel Díaz Ayuso or anti-Catalan polemicists like Juan Soto Ivars have had to make the gesture of praising this Wednesday's staging shows how much they did not expect it. In fact, the news of the Pope disappeared from the top positions of the Madrid newspapers' websites as soon as the pontiff left his city. Just the opposite of international media.
And then there is the political reading. Much has been written about the Pope's visit being a breath of fresh air for Pedro Sánchez at a particularly critical moment for him because he has come to legitimize both his migratory discourse and his international and defense policy. But the fact that there were 14 ministers at the Sagrada Família yesterday also shows that this government needs to make the Barcelona model its own to contrast it with the Madrid model. The one who has seen it best is Óscar Puente, always attentive to the pulse of social media, contrasting Barcelona's "creativity" and "good taste" with the Madrilenian old guard.
For the Spanish government, Barcelona represents social democracy, attempts to contain the market's drift in the real estate sector, social and sustainable policies, but also innovation and entrepreneurial culture in contrast to the Madrid's cash-grab mentality. What they may not know is that all of this is not new, but stems from a specific national idiosyncrasy that, among other things, allowed a cultural movement like Modernisme to flourish, a bourgeoisie with a sense of national identity, and a genius like Antoni Gaudí.
