The supermarket on Rambla de Catalunya

Although one tries to have a global idea of our city, Barcelonians guide all aesthetics based on our street. Mine is and will be Rambla de Catalunya which, despite its dreadful terraces and a string of equally horrifying shops, is still one of the most beautiful avenues in the world, the spiritual center of the Eixample. But the struggle continues, the sentimental ones would say, because lately we have seen how one of the most execrable aesthetic attacks in the universe has occurred on our Rambla. As if we didn't have enough with the absurd signage of many establishments, we have seen how a new 24-hour supermarket appeared disgustingly embedded in Casa Heribert Pons, a work by the architect Alexandre Soler i March (disciple of our genius Domènech i Montaner), which many fellow citizens know as the former headquarters of the Conselleria d'Economia.

It's quite ironic that, according to the Generalitat's Inventory of Architectural Heritage of Catalonia, this beautiful building (admire the rose garlands on the beautiful corbels, a work by our great Eusebi Arnau, which brings it closer to the Viennese Sezessionsstil) is listed as a Cultural Asset of Local Interest. I say and write that the matter has a certain irony, because when one contemplates the supermarket Easter cake that they have embedded in the right corner portal, one has to rub their eyes to check that they are not living immersed in a nightmare. If the Penal Code included an attack against aesthetics, this barbarity should undoubtedly fall into the category that leads the condemned directly to the guillotine. The case I report has become famous because they also say that the establishment in question does not have its license in order: but any administrative procedure is secondary, if we contemplate such an atrocity of lethal proportions.

Before the longed-for Oriol Bohigas guaranteed respect for the modernist buildings of the Eixample, as children we had witnessed architectural assassinations that were truly inconceivable to contemporary eyes, such as the mutilation of the modernist friezes of Casa Ferran Guardiola by the grace of the installation of signs for supposedly luxury stores. In our neighborhood, said master Lluís Permanyer, you can still chat with some very veteran doorman who had witnessed authentic amputations of statues and graffiti from some heritage buildings that are now the pride of our city and a must-visit for any Japanese person with a camera in their hands. It seemed, then, that we had learned our lesson and that we should never again write an article begging the authorities not to allow anyone to piss so with such impunity on our heritage. Well, the human being (and the Barcelonian) certifies that they are the animal that always hits the same stone.

I beg fellow citizens to have the patience to go to the place in question, because it seems incredible that anyone could have allowed such a crude attack on a 1909 building, until now an example of our ancestral mania for moderation. Look at it closely, I beg you, because the experience is similar to playing an augmented ninth chord in a Renaissance madrigal. Apart from the nauseating signage and a light that forces you to wear sunglasses, you have to hold your breath while contemplating the beautiful female busts of the building ---flanked by laurel wreaths, personification of the fine arts--- and then lower your gaze to find shelves overflowing with boxes of beer and bags of cookies in the process of decomposition. I clarify that this servant does not care about the ethnic origin of the supermarket owners; they should be imprisoned, even if they were descendants of Guifré el Pilós and Barcelona residents with a thousand Catalan surnames.

I beg our city's City Council to have mercy on our eyes and enforce respect for a glorious heritage that not only serves to showcase the Barcelona brand's stuff all over the world, but above all so that we can admire our city without it causing us a syncope. The Generalitat must also be reminded that it is not enough to label our architecture as heritage, but that inspectors are needed to ensure its condition on a more or less permanent basis. This is even more urgent if owners renovate (without permission) a heritage building in the middle of Barcelona and not a single damn soul finds out.