WHY BARCELONA?
Every city, even the youngest, has a history and some have been shaping it for centuries. Its past has been built brick by brick towards an image that represents the feelings of its inhabitants, their habits, their ideals, their memories. It has been modeled and passed on so that it represents how its inhabitants see themselves.
However, how do outsiders see the city? Do they perceive its history in the same way as its inhabitants? What do tourists think about the city they are about to visit?
Literature is an interesting means of understanding a city. Many authors
wrote about their travels and the places they visited. They present the places according to their own perception of the whole, of the people, of the places, of the buildings, of the streets ...
However, they are not known for their practicality nor for being of much help when it comes to the common tourists, the mass tourists of today. To that end, the publishing world has invented guidebooks. Tourist guides can be seen in all tourist places. They are the
where to go and what to do, among many other suggestions.
Besides that, they build an image - a tourist image - of the place they are talking about. They offer the potential tourist the main places to visit, the meals to order and the list of instructions is infinite, divided by days, neighborhoods, interests, budget ...
Of course, a tourist guide does not have the power, nor is it their responsibility, to create a tourist image out of nothing. They work on existing material,
almost always developed by the public authorities of a given place. It is the city
responsible for the big stage of its own tourist image.
THE TOURIST IMAGE OF BARCELONA IN THE
20TH CENTURY
Barcelona's tourist image began with the Universal Exposition of 1888, a great event that put the city under the eyes of the world once again and was repeated with the International Exposition of 1929. The development of the tourist image stopped completely during the years of the Spanish Civil War and restarted again a couple of decades later, during the second part of Franco's regime.
In the last years of the 1980s a new tourist image was created, based on the preparation for the created, starting with the preparation for the 1992 Olympic Games, and it was intended to give another breath of fresh air with the Forum of Cultures in 2004.
From the 1992 Olympic Games onwards
October 17, 1986 is a very important day for Barcelona, as it was the day the city was chosen to host the XXV Olympic Games.
These Games marked the city for the great transformations that their realization entailed. Right after the announcement, as BENACH said: Barcelona was rebuilt to be the scene of a great spectacle.
It is then that the three key concepts designed by SMITH (2005) are completed: Monumentalism, Modernism and Sports come together to establish the basis for modern tourism in Barcelona.
Because of the 1992 Olympic Games, tourists stayed more days in the city and were able to see the modernist buildings and other monuments scattered throughout the city's urban fabric.
Whether through emblematic monuments, such as the Magic Fountain of Montjuic or the Arc del Triomf near the Parc de la Ciutadella, or through the modernist buildings typically Catalan designed by Antoni Gaudí, Domimech i Montaner and Puig i Cadafalch, the Catalan nationalism and local pride in Barcelona were reinforced.
The whole area where before one only found more or less abandoned industries, now Barcelona presented entertainment areas, beautiful beaches and the new buildings of the Vila Olímpica.
Barcelona was no longer just another Spanish city, but a world reference in how the Olympic Games were staged and how they can completely change a city. Its model was tested in other regions around the world, with more or less success.
CONCLUSIONS
Barcelona and tourism have always gone hand in hand. Travelers have always arrived at its ports, be it the Olympic or the old one, and have walked through its streets, be it the narrow streets of the Ciutat Vella or the wide ones of the Eixample.
In the last century, several tourist guides were written in an attempt to help all these people who ventured into Barcelona.
At the beginning of the 20th century, they were presented with a city that was opened to the world with universal exhibitions, which did not renounce its gothic past and frowned upon the new architectures of young modernists. Then came the war, and even in these times tourists came to Barcelona: Hemingway and Orwell visited the city , to stay with two well-known names. After the war and the Franco regime was established, the time of the sun and beach tourism came and Barcelona played a rather secondary role, serving as a gateway to the Costa Brava and Costa Daurada. Finally, the 1992 Olympic Games arrived and the city was reborn, establishing a new model of tourism management, based on three key concepts, namely: Modernism, Monumentalism and Sports.
Barcelona, international capital of designer jewelry
Barcelona undoubtedly became last October 2019, in the world capital of jewelry. Around JOYA Barcelona Art Jewellery & Objects, which took place from the 10th to the 12th of October 2019, 21 exhibitions were held in the city and in Catalonia to showcase artists and creations of contemporary jewelry.
JOYA Barcelona brings together again in its 11th edition the world of artistic jewelry.
On Saturday, October 12, 2019, JOYA Barcelona Art Jewellery & Objects, the main event of artistic jewelry and author objects in Spain, closed its doors after three interesting days that have been very well valued by public and exhibitors. As Paulo Ribeiro, director of the Ribeiro, director of the event, the number of visitors was
4,000 visitors were counted in its eleventh visitors in its eleventh edition. A a total of 480 creators from all over the from all over the world gave content to The creations of the Greek Artemis Valsamaki, made with copper, silver and acrylic paint, are striking.
As he states: "Each time, my intention is to create a visual narrative story to use. visual narrative story to use.
Barbora Opátova, from the Hochschule Trier Idar-Oberstein, Germany, with her necklace "Jelloose" (faux fur, chiffon, mother-of-pearl, freshwater pearls, basalt, threads, nylon, nylon, and basalt, threads, nylon, brass and acrylic resin). Among the collectives present at JOYA, the Catalan group Tresors, with the artisan, jeweler and illustrator Clara Niubó.
As last year, the Disseny HUB Barcelona has been the place chosen for the development of JOYA, which also hosted the retrospective exhibition
dedicated to Joaquim Capdevila, jeweler and goldsmith, and those selected for the Enjoia't 2019 awards, given by the jewelry and goldsmith association FAD, Foment de les Arts i del Disseny. In turn, the jeweler Ramon Puig Cuyàs presented the book "When Jewellery becomes a Metaphor".
Specifically, thay year's call was attended by 58 selected artists, eight winners of prestigious international awards, two galleries, three collectives, three international schools and seven national schools.
JOYA Barcelona has focused on the communicative and diplomatic meaning of jewelry and art objects. Seen not only as an ornament for the body, but delving much deeper, as the ideological expression of the 4,000 visitors received this design event.
JOYA Barcelona was also the stage for the awarding of numerous prizes. On its first day, DTerra Award; Ambar Magazine Award and, finally, Arte y Joya International Award, awarded by Grupo Duplex among the participants in the ARTE Y JOYA Contemporary Jewellery Yearbook.
On the second day, Autor Award; Athens Jewellery Week Award, and the one established by DOR Museum. Finally, on Saturday, JOYA Worth Award and Enjoia't Award.
