Designed by MiAS Arquitectes, When I was a student at the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), the maritime neighborhood, Barceloneta, was the subject of much conversation. Restaurants on the beach which later disappeared with its narrow streets, cramped flats, the clothes hanging out on the balconies, the shops, the artisans’ workshops, and its people, who talked, and still talk, fast and loud.
Photography: Adrià Goula
The project meant a chance to go back to the neighborhood in an interesting manner; it was no longer a trip for fun and discovery, but rather a survey of the place. The object was to identify what would enable us to reveal its qualities and to describe it accurately for the purposes of a project.

Ultimately, it was an attempt to explain a reality and to offer a new and fuller meaning to an architectural project, beyond resolving a programme or commission. As early as the competition stage we did a collage with some of César Manrique’s fantastic fish, drawings for children we hoped might embody and express the joy of these people: their liveliness, their energy, their enthusiasm in the face of frequent hardship. Section
The Market has always been an element of social cohesion in the neighborhood, a landmark, sometimes almost secret and visible only to its inhabitants. This condition of density that the market has in relation to the city should be a condition of the project so that the building and its immediate surroundings actually become...