Barcelona is one of those cities that sometimes walks you instead of you walking it. It's that thing where one thing leads to another. These last few days I have wandered through the center to see that the first post-pandemic tourists are already visible. I ended up in the Santa Caterina market and, indeed, I located some of them browsing among the stalls. As always happens to me, upon leaving I spent a few minutes admiring the multicolored roof conceived by architects Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue. It is 4,200 square meters of ceramic mosaic with the colors of fruits and vegetables. It is a magnificent work that gives personality to the market, an old convent, which does not clash at all despite its visual impact. I love that roof.
Precisely the roof reminded me that the 20th anniversary of Miralles' death is being commemorated. He died prematurely in 2000, at only 45 years old, at a peak moment in his career, but since we skipped 2020 due to covid, it has not been until this 2021 that several exhibitions about the architect have coincided in Barcelona.
One of them is in the Tinell, where models and sketches of four of his most representative works can be admired: the aforementioned renovation of the Santa Caterina market, the Igualada cemetery, the Huesca sports palace and the Scottish Parliament, in Edinburgh. One afternoon in 2000, in the newsroom of El Periódico, a phone rang, I picked it up and on the other side there was a journalist from a Scottish newspaper who wanted to know if it was true that Miralles was very ill. I told him yes, that he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, although I did not know more details.
And it is that then Miralles was quite a celebrity in Scotland for the project of the new Parliament. Like any work that breaks with classical standards, the building designed by the architect was as applauded by the academic world as it was criticized by sectors of Scottish society and politics, who did not understand it, as well as for the final cost overrun, which is estimated at 10 times more than expected.
In any case, Miralles-Tagliabue's proposal for the Scottish Parliament is striking. And, as with the roof of the Santa Caterina market, it does not break at all with the surroundings —from my point of view, of course—, especially when one has the opportunity to see firsthand that it dialogues very well with the orography of Edinburgh's surroundings and even with the stone architecture of the urban area where it is located, very close to the Holyrood royal palace.
The contempt for architectural works, when they deviate from established canons, is a classic in history. In Barcelona, we have a very illustrative case. When Gaudí began to build Casa Milà, on Passeig de Gràcia, it caused an avalanche of criticism. People began to disparagingly call the building pedrera, because, they said, it was as ugly as a quarry. Today it is considered a work of art by the architect from Reus and thousands of tourists visit it every year. Also today, the debate overcome, the Scottish Parliament is part of the must-see route for every visitor to Edinburgh.
In the Tinell, in the exhibition Miralles. A quarts de quatre, several of the preliminary models and the definitive one of the Scottish upper house can be seen. But there are three more exhibitions in Barcelona to delve into the figure of the architect. Thus, at the Centre d'Art Santa Mònica, Miralles. Photos &Collages, which reviews his career as a photographer, can be visited until June 30. At the Fundació Enric Miralles, Miralles. To be continued, which reviews the projects that the EMBT studio, which the architect founded with his partner Benedetta Tagliabue, has carried out in the last 20 years, since his death, is on display until December 23. At the Museu del Disseny, you can enjoy the exhibition Miralles Perpetuum Mobile, to discover his facet as a furniture designer. Finally, the Col·legi d'Arquitectes has joined with a series of conferences and an exhibition on the architect's academic activity.
It is a well-deserved tribute to an architect who left too soon but who has left us works for history.