Often hidden in sculptures, facades, fountains and lanterns, in our city there is hundreds of representations of animals that testify to the close relationship between art and animals.
Així doncs, today I want to write about “The artistic fauna of Barcelona”. Specifically, the animalistic representations distributed throughout the city's public space and highlight its importance and the close relationship that sculpture has with urban planning.
On the journey through the representations of animals present in the public art of Barcelona, we will reveal numerous curiosities and facts unknown to a large part of the public. We can meet dragons there, turtles, toros, dogs, gats, bous, lizards, lobsters, turtles, spiders, ants… and also rare animals in these latitudes and even prehistoric beasts like the mammoth, presented to the Parc de la Ciutadella.
So let's start with an itinerary that will take us to the House of the Archdeacon, in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. Next to the access door we will see a stone mailbox with five swallows and a turtle, which as you can assume are not there because they are. Swallows are an allegory of the speed of justice and correspondence. And the turtle is the realistic counterpoint: we would like justice and correspondence to go quickly, however, actually, they are slow.
I recommend that you pay attention to it when you go for a walk in the Gothic Quarter!
Now I want to highlight the presence of the sculpture of a well-known animal
for all the people of Barcelona, many of you may have taken a picture or maybe even climbed. It is about the Mammoth of the Ciutadella Park, which dates from 1906.
It responds to an initial project of the park of the Ciutadella, in which it was stated that the Park was to be populated by a set of 12 sculptures of animals of the passat on a real scale. It goes without saying that if it had been fully realized, would have surprised all the citizens and visitors. Finally, it was just carried out the sculpture of the Mammoth, this one was chosen because it is a species from the remote past, located in different places in Catalonia. A species that lived in the Quaternary, in ice ages.
The sculpture, was entrusted to Enric Dalmau, who built it with wood. But thanks to the participation of an architect, Claudi Duran, reinforced cement was incorporated and this made it more resistant.
Now let's look at the dragons. Sant Jordi is the patron saint of Catalonia together with the Virgin Mary of Montserrat. For this reason, the modernists filled the city with dragons, on the facades, ports, exits, fons, lights… there are more of 400. We especially remember here the one of the Casa Batlló, that of Casa Ametller as well as that of Casa Bruno Cuadros or Casa dels Paraigües located in Les Rambles. Also, we will find it at Holy Family even at the doors of the Nativity Façade, decorated with a fauna of small animals that hide under the ivy, ants, lizards…
The great presence of dragons in the county city of Barcelona is why it is also known as the city of dragons.
We cannot forget the dragon located at the entrance to Park Güell, an animal full of color due to the different and vivid shades of the trencadís.
It is a joint work between Gaudí and Jujol that, has become one another icon of the city and a benchmark of Catalan modernism. The Park was built between 1900-1914.
Also in our imaginary walk, we find a frog there, specifically that of the Fountain of the Frog, located in the streets Diagonal – Corsica. Where if represents a creature holding an amphibian, whose mouth serves as a fountain. It is a sculpture of bonze, work of Josep Campeny, of 1912.
Let's go now to theRambla de Catalunya, where we discover one flirtatious giraffe i a thinking bull, both give off a special and stately charm, not without a sense of humor and a certain irony… that yes, with a lot of art. It is enough to look at the two statues of humanized animals that delimit this walk. At the beginning, next to Gran Via, we have al thinking bull and in Avinguda Diagonal we are surprised by the flirtatious giraffe. Both are by Josep Granyer(Barcelona 1899-1983) and are inspired by masterpieces such as Rodin's thinker and Antonio Cánova's Paulina Bonaparte, respectively.
It's about, two savior statues: a hero and a heroine, haha he 1970, Barcelona City Council was about to approve an urban planning project that wanted to turn the Rambla de Catalunya into a traffic artery, which is why the association Amics de la Rambla de Catalunya came into action in order to prevent the project from becoming a reality. For this reason, they resorted to art to counterattack with an artistic proposal that consisted of the creation of a promenade of ten sculptures by Josep Granyer. The sign of their identity was to create animals in human attitudes from a satirical perspective.
Another sculpture well known to all Barcelona residents, which dates from 1983 and Woman and Bird, work of Joan Miró and Joan Gardy, It was Miró's last great work. The great sculpture went on to adorn the urban landscape of our city. Made with concrete and ceramics, meters ago 22 tall. It is one of the first expressions of public art in Barcelona during the democratic era.
As its title indicates, it represents a woman with a hat and a bird on top. The representation of femininity is solved with the hollow form covered in black ceramic that takes the form of a vagina, this is a characteristic of the Mironian language due to the feminine form.
If we are looking for a feline, the incredible will immediately come to mind Gat by the Colombian sculptor and painter Fernando Botero.
This sculpture has become a symbol of one of the most native and endearing neighborhoods of Barcelona, the Ravathe. Her neighbors have ended up welcoming her with a lot of affection and making her their own. El Gat del Raval it is already an indissoluble part of this Rambla and the neighborhood. Becoming a meeting point for friends and neighbors and a meeting and recreation area for children.
Ethe Gat in question, was acquired by Barcelona City Council on 1987, although it is not until 2003 when it finds its current location. For which reason, before getting to where it is now, the animal wandered around the city until it found a place to feel at ease. The first location was in Ciutadella Park, next to the zoo and, then they transferred him to Montjuïc, where it was located next to the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium and, from there it went to the center of the city. This time he decided on a slightly more crowded place, next to the Rambles. He went to the small square behind the Shipyards, quite close to its current location.
Finally, the 2003, taking advantage of the remodeling of the Raval neighborhood, and the creation of its promenade, it was decided to raise it a little higher than its previous location. And it is in the Raval where it has been most well received.
It is a large black cat made of bronze, fa 7 meters long, 2 all in 2 d’ample, he is no longer from Barcelona because he cannot. It has become a historic and representative symbol of a neighborhood. From a city. Which has ended up becoming one of the distinctive elements of the Raval.
A a city as Mediterranean as Barcelona, a marine species could not be missing and, in this repertoire we have the most representative and well known to all, it is nothing less than the well known fish, of the North American architect Frank Gehry, inaugurated on 1992 and which has become one of the emblems of Olympic Barcelona.
This sculpture has an enormous size, fa 56 meters long and 35 metres d’alt, it feels like at any moment you have to dive into the waters of the Mediterranean, that he has in front of him.
It is located in the center of the Passeig Marítim with which the City Council wanted to redefine the city's maritime facade.
Gehry, he wanted to erect a sculpture that reflected the Mediterranean and seafaring character of Barcelona.
Built on a metal structure, is its outer layer, golden stainless steel, the one that gives beauty and uniqueness to creation. Depending on the intensity of the light and the reflection of the sun's rays, this outer layer seems to become a scaly skin that fills the inanimate object with life.
However,, in the itinerary, we can also find there dolphins, for example, at the Font dels dofins in the Laberint d'Horta and inside the Ciutadella park…
And to finish adding that also say that Barcelona City Council on 2018 made a campaign for the adoption of dogs, handing out 20 concrete sculptures of these animals linked to different elements of urban furniture.
The sculptures corresponded to real dogs pending adoption that were in the Animal Adoption Center.
Àngels Canut