1.
Carrer del Carme, Barcelona
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Carrer del Carme is a street in central Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, located in the Raval neighbourhood of the Ciutat Vella district. Its part of the recently revamped commercial area of Raval, the street is notable for being mentioned on the first page of Jean Genets novel The Thiefs Journal. It must not be confused with Plaça del Carmén, in the Les Corts district, liceu metro station, served by L3, on La Rambla right next to Carrer del Carme. Sant Antoni metro station, served by L2, on Ronda Sant Antoni, not far from the street
2.
Fernando Botero
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Fernando Botero Angulo is a Colombian figurative artist and sculptor. Born in Medellín, his style, also known as Boterismo, depicts people and figures in large, exaggerated volume. Self-titled the most Colombian of Colombian artists early on, he came to prominence when he won the first prize at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in 1958. Working most of the year in Paris, in the last three decades he has achieved recognition for his paintings, drawings and sculpture, with exhibitions across the world. His art is collected by major international museums, corporations. In 2012, he received the International Sculpture Centers Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, Fernando Botero was born the second of three sons to David Botero and Flora Angulo. David Botero, a salesman who traveled by horseback, died of an attack when Fernando was four. His mother worked as a seamstress, an uncle took a major role in his life. Although isolated from art as presented in museums and other institutes, Botero was influenced by the Baroque style of the colonial churches. He received his education in Antioquia Ateneo and, thanks to a scholarship. In 1944, Boteros uncle sent him to a school for matadors for two years, in 1948, Botero at age 16 had his first illustrations published in the Sunday supplement of the El Colombiano, one of the most important newspapers in Medellín. He used the money he was paid to attend school at the Liceo de Marinilla de Antioquia. Boteros work was first exhibited in 1948, in a show along with other artists from the region. From 1949 to 1950, Botero worked as a set designer and his first one-man show was held at the Galería Leo Matiz in Bogotá, a few months after his arrival. In 1952, Botero travelled with a group of artists to Barcelona, in Madrid, Botero studied at the Academia de San Fernando. In 1952, he traveled to Bogotá, where he had an exhibit at the Leo Matiz gallery. In 1953, Botero moved to Paris, where he spent most of his time in the Louvre and he lived in Florence, Italy from 1953 to 1954, studying the works of Renaissance masters. In recent decades, he has lived most of the time in Paris and he has had more than 50 exhibits in major cities worldwide, and his work commands selling prices in the millions of dollars
3.
Sant Pau del Camp
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Sant Pau del Camp is a church and former monastery in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. While the monastery now stands within the El Raval district in central Barcelona, it stood outside the city. There are no sources about the origins, it is generally thought that it was founded by count Wilfred II of Barcelona. The monastery is documented from 977, in 985 it was sacked and destroyed by the Muslim troops of al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir, restorations were begun in 1096, through donations from Geribert Guitard and Rotlendis, and a new monastic community arrived. In 1117, Sant Pau became a priory of the monastery of Sant Cugat, by the 13th, a new cloister, church and monastic quarters were built. In 1377, the monastery consisted of a prior and eight monks, an initial monastic meeting for the Terragona province occurred in 1577 and such meetings would continue from 1594 to 1835. The monks were removed upon the secularization of monasteries by the Spanish government in 1835 and it was declared National Monument in 1879. The Romanesque monastery has a cloister, built in the 13th century. It features lobular arcades supported by columns, whose capitals are decorated by biblical and daily life scenes, animals, monsters. The abbots house was built in the 13th-14th and early 18th century, the church is on the Greek cross plan, with a single aisle. It has a transept with three apses, and the interior is covered by barrel vaults, the entrance doorway has two columns with ancient marble Visigothic capitals, while in the tympanum is depicted Christ in Majesty with Saints Paul and Peter. The chapter house houses the tomb of the founder of the monastery. A Privilege of Pope Alexander III for Sant Pau Del Camp, Paul Freedman, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, kendall, The Allegory of the Church, Romanesque Portals and Their Verse Inscriptions, University of Toronto Press,1998. Media related to Monestir de Sant Pau del Camp at Wikimedia Commons Images, informations and curiosities about the monastery Sacred-Destinations. com, Sant Pau del Camp
4.
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art
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The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art is situated in the Plaça dels Àngels, in El Raval, Ciutat Vella, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The museum opened to the public on November 28,1995, previous directors were Daniel Giralt-Miracle, Miguel Molins, Manuel J. Borja-Villel, and Bartomeu Marí, while the current director, since 2015 is Ferran Barenblit. It was not until 1986 that the Barcelona City Council recommended the American architect Richard Meier & Partners to design the museum, Art critics Francesc Miralles and Rosa Queralt were hired to write the museum’s mission statement. In 1987, the MACBA Foundation was created, in the following year the MACBA Foundation, in conjunction with the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Barcelona City Council, founded the MACBA Consortium in order further the process of the museum. The Consortium commissioned Meier later that year to build the museum and this was a controversial issue considering that the museum had no collection at the time of construction. The museum opened to the public in 1995, well after the 1992 Summer Olympics for which it was planned, while MACBA has long used the chapel for performances and site-specific installations, this time the city lent the entire historic cluster to the institution for an unspecified term. Meier embraced the difficult task of creating a building that would display a variety of contemporary artworks that were unknown to him at the time of design. The building’s architectural style has strong references to Modernism, the museum has three main galleries, which can be subdivided, as well as five smaller galleries, one of which is in a tower. The permanent collection of around 5,000 works dates from the mid-20th century onward, there are three periods of modern art represented, the first one covers the forties to the sixties, the second spans the sixties and seventies, the third period is contemporary. The collections focus on post-1945 Catalan and Spanish art, although some International artists are also represented, the exhibition is then an experience on a par with that of workshops, conferences, audiovisual activities, publications, etc. All of these experiences are defined by a series of lines which lend thematic coherence” MACBA Website. In march 2011, the art collector Philippe Méaille grants a loan of 800 artworks of Art&Language group, in December 2007, the museum opened its Study Center, enhancing the educational aspect which is integral to the museum’s mission. The Library Reading Room and Special Collections Room grant the public access to the museum’s books, publications collection. MACBA publishes mainly exhibition catalogues from the museum, although has published some monographic books, additionally, MACBA has three digital publications, Quaderns portàtils, Quaderns dÀudio, and Sèrie Capella MACBA. MACBA offers a variety of events including lectures, seminars, guided tours, video screenings, the Museum address is Plaça dels Angels,1, Barcelona. The closest metro stations are Catalunya and Universitat, entrance to this part of the museum is free. Another contemporary art museum, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, is adjacent to MACBA, the surrounding square and architecture outside of the museum is among the most well-known and respected places for modern skateboarding. Together with surrounding places in Barcelona, it is a ground in youth culture due to its reputation in the world of skateboarding photography
5.
Ciutat Vella
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Ciutat Vella is a district of Barcelona, numbered District 1. The name means old city in Catalan and refers to the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, ciutat Vella is nestled between the Mediterranean Sea and the neighborhood called lEixample. It is considered the centre of the city, the Plaça Catalunya is one of the most popular meeting points in all of Catalonia. Les Rambles stretches from Plaça Catalunya to the Mediterranean Sea and, since the 1990s, now extends out over the sea one of Barcelonas newest centers of entertainment. Each of Les Rambles has its own specialty, la Rambla de les Flors is devoted to flower stands, another Rambla to animal vendors, and the lowest Rambla hosts temporary art fairs. El Mercat de Sant Josep and Gran Teatre del Liceu are both located here, Les Rambles are among the most frequently travelled streets by pedestrians in Barcelona. At the bottom, there is the Museu Marítim, which chronicles the history of life on the Mediterranean, the museum is housed in the medieval Drassanes, where the ships that made Catalonia a great sea power in the Mediterranean were built. This portion of the city is referred to as el Barri Xinès. It acquired this name not due to there being residents of Chinese origin and it has become one of the most dynamic areas of the city. Many smaller ethnic restaurants may be found in Raval and fashionable restaurants, the Museu dArt Contemporani de Barcelona is in this neighborhood. On the other side of Les Rambles, is el Barri Gòtic and this neighborhood houses the Cathedral of Barcelona, la Generalitat, and lAjuntament. Tourists visit this neighborhood to see Plaça Reial and to shop in one of the tourist shops along Carrer Ferran, to the north of the Gothic Quarter lie the Jardins de Fonseré i Mestre which contain modernist buildings housing zoological and geological collections
6.
Barcelona
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Founded as a Roman city, in the Middle Ages Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. Barcelona has a cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre. Particularly renowned are the works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean is located in Barcelona, the city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class conferences and expositions and also many international sport tournaments. It is a cultural and economic centre in southwestern Europe, 24th in the world. In 2008 it was the fourth most economically powerful city by GDP in the European Union, in 2012 Barcelona had a GDP of $170 billion, it is leading Spain in both employment rate and GDP per capita change. In 2009 the city was ranked Europes third and one of the worlds most successful as a city brand, since 2011 Barcelona has been a leading smart city in Europe. During the Middle Ages, the city was known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa. Internationally, Barcelonas name is abbreviated to Barça. However, this refers only to FC Barcelona, the football club. The common abbreviated form used by locals is Barna, another common abbreviation is BCN, which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport. The city is referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan. The origin of the earliest settlement at the site of present-day Barcelona is unclear, the ruins of an early settlement have been excavated in the El Raval neighbourhood, including different tombs and dwellings dating to earlier than 5000 BC. The founding of Barcelona is the subject of two different legends, the first attributes the founding of the city to the mythological Hercules. In about 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum centred on the Mons Taber, under the Romans, it was a colony with the surname of Faventia, or, in full, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino or Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. It enjoyed immunity from imperial burdens, the city minted its own coins, some from the era of Galba survive. Some remaining fragments of the Roman walls have incorporated into the cathedral. The cathedral, also known as the Basilica La Seu, is said to have founded in 343
7.
Catalonia
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Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, located on the northeastern extremity of the Iberian Peninsula. It is designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy, Catalonia consists of four provinces, Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second-most populated municipality in Spain, Catalonia comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia. It is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, the official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan. The eastern counties of these marches were united under the rule of the Frankish vassal the Count of Barcelona, in the later Middle Ages Catalan literature flourished. Between 1469 and 1516, the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile married and ruled their kingdoms together, retaining all their distinct institutions, Courts, and constitutions. During the Franco-Spanish War, Catalonia revolted against a large and burdensome presence of the Royal army in its territory, within a brief period France took full control of Catalonia, at a high economic cost for Catalonia, until it was largely reconquered by the Spanish army. In the nineteenth century, Catalonia was severely affected by the Napoleonic, in the second half of the century Catalonia experienced industrialisation. As wealth from the industrial expansion grew, Catalonia saw a cultural renaissance coupled with incipient nationalism while several workers movements appeared. In 1914, the four Catalan provinces formed a Commonwealth, and with the return of democracy during the Second Spanish Republic, after the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing Catalan institutions and banning the official use of the Catalan language again. Since the Spanish transition to democracy, Catalonia has regained some political and cultural autonomy and is now one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain, the origin of the name Catalunya is subject to diverse interpretations because of a lack of evidence. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that Catalania derives from the medley of Goths with Alans. Other less plausible theories suggest, Catalunya derives from the land of castles, having evolved from the term castlà or castlan. This theory therefore suggests that the names Catalunya and Castile have a common root, the source is of Celtic origin, meaning chiefs of battle. Although the area is not known to have been occupied by Celts, the Lacetani, an Iberian tribe that lived in the area and whose name, due to the Roman influence, could have evolved by metathesis to Katelans and then Catalans. In English, Catalonia is pronounced /kætəˈloʊniə/, the native name, Catalunya, is pronounced in Central Catalan, the most widely spoken variety whose pronunciation is considered standard. The Spanish name is Cataluña, and the Aranese name is Catalonha, the first known human settlements in what is now Catalonia were at the beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic. From the next era, the Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic, important remains survive
8.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
9.
Port Vell
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Port Vell is a waterfront harbor in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and part of the Port of Barcelona. It was built as part of a renewal program prior to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Before this, it was a area of empty warehouses, railroad yards. 16 million people visit the complex each year, a pedestrian walkway, Rambla de Mar, connects La Rambla to Port Vell. It incorporates a bridge, in order to allow ships to enter. Around the 4th century BC Barcelona was occupied by the Laietani, a tribe of Iberian people who inhabited the coastline between the Llobregat and Tordera rivers. Barkeno, on Montjuïc, was their main settlement and these people traded with the Greek colony in Empúries, building large grain stores for the purpose. In the 1st century AD, the Romans founded a colony, Barcino, the first port activity on the northern side of Montjuïc. The city and its maritime activities began to flourish and expand when Barcinos city walls were built after the Barbarian invasion in 263. During the Late Middle Ages, Barcelona found itself on the frontier between Islam to the south and Christianity to the north, the ships that anchored between the Royal Shipyards and the city were badly exposed to the great storms that often affected this coast and which caused many shipwrecks. Work on the first successful project began in 1477, the enterprise entailed building a dock that would stretch as far as Maians Island, a sandy islet about 100 metres off the coast. The Barceloneta neighbourhood was built on this new peninsula, despite the constant work to extend the dike, in 1743 the huge amounts of sand that had accumulated finally collapsed the port. An enormous sandbank between the end and what is now Plaça del Portal de la Pau made it necessary to close the port. The beacon in the Moll de Pescadors dock, was built a little later, in order to provide a definitive solution to the problem of harbor depth, work began in 1816 to extend the breakwater, which reached what is now the floating dike in 1882. In 1868, the Barcelona authorities requested permission from the Development Ministry to constitute the Port of Barcelona Board of Public Works and this institution continued to operate until 1978. It was under the Board of Public Works that the structure was at last consolidated. Construction of the first transversal dock, where the Moll de Barcelona now stands, was completed in 1882, offices of public works were dissolved in 1992, and port authorities were established to replace them. Under the Strategic Plan, the port is structured around three areas, the commercial port, the logistical port and the old port
10.
Chinatown
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A Chinatown is historically any ethnic enclave, of Chinese or Han people outside of Mainland China or Taiwan, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as Chinatown exist throughout the world, including the Americas, Europe, Africa, Australasia, a Chinatown, as a Chinese enclave, is defined as. Any small, distinct area or group enclosed or isolated within a larger group, the development of most Chinatowns typically start with mass migration to an area having zero or very few Chinese. The Oxford Dictionary defines Chinatown as, a district of any non-Chinese town, especially a city or seaport, in which the population is predominantly of Chinese origin. However, some Chinatowns may have little to do with China, some Vietnamese enclaves are in fact a citys second Chinatown, and some Chinatowns are in fact pan-Asian, meaning they could also be counted as a Koreatown or Little India. One example includes Asiatown in Cleveland, Ohio and it was initially referred to as a Chinatown but was subsequently renamed due to the influx of non-Chinese Asian Americans who opened businesses there. Today the district acts as a factor for the Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Nepalese. As isolated from the population as Hispanics. This contrasts with narrower definitions, where the only described Chinatown in a city setting. In some cities in Spain, the term denotes an area, neighborhood or district where prostitution or other related to the sex industry are concentrated. Some examples of this are the Chinatown of Salamanca and the Chinatown of Barcelona, trading centres populated predominantly by Chinese men and their native spouses have long existed throughout Southeast Asia. Emigration to other parts of the world from China accelerated in the 1860s with the signing of the Treaty of Peking, early emigrants came primarily from the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in southeastern China – where the people generally speak Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew and Hokkien. As conditions in China have improved in recent decades, many Chinatowns have lost their initial mission, as net migration slows, the smaller Chinatowns have slowly decayed, often to the point of becoming purely historical and no longer serving as ethnic enclaves. Binondos Chinatown located in Manila, Philippines is the oldest Chinatown in the world, several Asian Chinatowns, although not yet called by that name, have a long history. Those in Nagasaki, Japan, Binondo in Manila, Hoi An, glodok, the Chinese quarter of Jakarta, Indonesia, dates to 1740. Chinese presence in India dates back to the 5th century AD, a Chinatown first appeared in the Indian city of Calcutta and subsequently in Mumbai and Chennai. The first Chinese settler in Calcutta was Young Atchew around 1780, the Chinatown centered on Yaowarat Road in Bangkok, Thailand, was founded at the same time as the city itself, in 1782. Many Chinese immigrants arrived in Liverpool in the late 1850s in the employ of the Blue Funnel Shipping Line, the commercial shipping line created strong trade links between the cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Liverpool, mainly in the importation of silk, cotton and tea
