Visit to Gaudí's ghost station, the only one in the Barcelona metro that never opened.

BarcelonaNear the Sagrada Família, there's a metro entrance that seemingly leads nowhere. It's at the intersection of Avinguda Gaudí and Carrer Lepant, and until now, its door has always been closed to the general public. A small sign indicates that behind the gate is a multipurpose room and a space for retired TMB workers. But the reality is that these stairs lead much further. To the only metro station in the city that has never been used. More than fifty years after its construction, Barcelona will open the doors of one of its best-kept secrets this Sunday for the first time: Gaudí's "ghost station."

To understand why the city has had an unused metro station for more than half a century, we must go back to 1968. Back then, metro expansion plans involved creating two new lines: one that would cross the city from the mountains to the sea, and another that would cross it from the Bes. The difficulties encountered in drilling the ground led the authorities at the time to abandon the project, and the two projects were merged into a single project: Line 5. In an unintentional homage to the creator of the Sagrada Família, Gaudí's station also ended up being an unfinished project.

The merger of both lines into a single project left the Gaudí station—which was intended to serve the line connecting Horta with Paral·lel—in limbo. Technicians deemed the station too close to the Hospital de Sant Pau and Sagrada Família stations, so they rendered it inoperative. Since then, it has remained closed, visible only to passengers on Line 5 trains who carefully scrutinize their views as they pass. Because even though it doesn't stop, the metro has been running right in front of its platform for over half a century.

Now, the cars will continue to run uninterrupted at Gaudí, but this weekend, those with tickets will be able to visit this station for the first time. This is one of the events TMB has organized as part of the metro's centenary celebrations, and in the coming days, visitors will also be able to visit the city's other ghost station: Correos. However, in this case the station – between the Barceloneta and Jaime I stops on line 4 – was in operation, from 1934 to 1972.

A museum on the platform

Those fortunate enough to visit Gaudí's station—or those who can sharpen their eyes as they pass by on the metro—will find a station that is far from resembling an abandoned structure. To commemorate the centenary, TMB has updated it by installing barriers to prevent falls on the track, polished the platform floor, illuminated it, and installed panels that transform the station into a kind of basement museum of the history of the metro.

Thus, in addition to texts explaining how the city's network has evolved since 1925, visitors will also find old posters from stations that no longer exist. A kind of journey into the past, there are also display cases with old metro tickets—from the elongated tickets that looked like a bookmark on the Olympic ticket with a Cobi drawing incorporated—or even relics such as the yellow machines that were used both to purchase tickets and to control access to the metro.

Although the station is currently only scheduled to open to the public this weekend and the last weekend of October—with all tickets sold out—TMB has confirmed that they are considering opening it for another few weekends as part of the metro's centenary events. The possibility of doing so more times in the future is even on the table.