[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Intro vida Pepi + mercat” _builder_version=”3.7″]<\/p>\n
I arrived in 2008 and lived in the Sant Antoni neighborhood of Barcelona<\/strong> for several years. Nothing foreshadowed the change that was coming. They told me that, after years of commercial splendor, the neighborhood was in decline despite its proximity to the central Pla\u00e7a Universitat and Pla\u00e7a Catalunya. The effervescent life then was in the Raval,<\/a> even in the Poble Sec … the Paral.lel pointed ways, but did not decide to hatch as a top zone. The neighborhood of Gracia was still on the rise.<\/span><\/p>\n Today, talking about the Sant Antoni neighborhood is for many people talking about gentrification and the real estate boom. For others the place has been touched with the magic barite of modernity, they see its trendy side. The point is that it is fashionable. With all the good and the bad. From Barcelonina we like to talk about Barcelona as we see it and feel it, without beauty filters or photo-post tricks, but today’s story is about one of its good things. In reality, a renaissance<\/em>: the Sant Antoni Market.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Intro hist\u00f2ria” _builder_version=”3.7″]<\/p>\n Unbeatable location for a market. This, when it was not yet the modernist building that we know now, was located outdoors near one of the doors of the wall that surrounded the city. Barcelona grew by leaps and bounds and needed places to buy food. People and merchandise made the place prosper.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Imatge mercat antic” _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”https:\/\/www.barcelonina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/mercatbn-1.jpg” alt=”Sant Antoni Market” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Construcci\u00f3 mercal” _builder_version=”3.7″]<\/p>\n The Cerd\u00e0 plan already contemplated the need to turn it into a permanent market and entrusted the architect Antoni Rovira i Trias with the construction of an adequate structure. They set to work in 1879 and three years later it was ready to be inaugurated by the mayor of Barcelona, \u200b\u200bRius i Taulet. <\/span><\/p>\n The resulting building made an impression: an iron structure with towering windows, with a circular central area with a panoptic function and four crossed arms extending like the blades of a mill. All covered and with wide lateral cornices to protect the external stops of the sun or the rain. If you like the Mercat del Born, the similar style of this will also please you.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Mercat Dominical” _builder_version=”3.7″]<\/p>\n Soon the supply of food is extended to other merchandise and around the building a Mercat dels Encants is created, almost completely occupied by merchants of the textile industry and household items.<\/p>\n The entrepreneurial and commercial activity of the neighborhood was again demonstrated when, later, the space also accommodated a third market: the Sunday Market of Sant Antoni.<\/strong> New and old books, postcards, posters, magazines, stickers, stamps … The booksellers and the collectors of diverse items met with the public every Sunday turning this place into a rare example of urban market with activity every day of the week.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”https:\/\/www.barcelonina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sant-Antoni-Caixes.jpg” align=”center” alt=”Sunday Sant Antoni Market” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.7″]<\/p>\n It is said that the second-hand book market, also known as Fira de Bellcaire, was an inherited activity of the existed between 1920 and 1936 in the Paral\u00b7lel<\/a>. All kinds of objects were offered there, but the sale of books prevailed. Since 1936, people of all types, including prestigious intellectuals (it is said that during Franco’s dictatorship in Sant Antoni, people clandestinely sold or exchanged forbidden books<\/strong>), went to buy or just walk among its crowded stalls.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Diumenges al mercat” _builder_version=”3.7″]<\/p>\n Going to Sant Antoni Market on Sunday<\/strong> mornings, became a regular activity in my family. The ritual had no mysteries: a couple of laps to travel the corridor in one direction and the reverse, perhaps an exchange of cards and, near noon, a vermouth. Interestingly rainy Sundays were my favorite to move in concentric circles through this paradise of second-hand books. It was cool to go with friends rivaling in locating the weirdest specimen or buying many things boasting about the low price we had paid.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Imatge teulada exterior” _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”https:\/\/www.barcelonina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Teulada-Sant-Antoni.jpg” align=”center” alt=”Sant Antoni market roof” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Visita amb el pare i la mare” _builder_version=”3.7″]<\/p>\nFrom the doors of the city to the heart of a neighborhood<\/h2>\n
The Sunday Market arrives<\/h2>\n
\nTo cope with the inclemency of the weather, they organized themselves in an association and managed to get the City Council to offer them a place under the wide marquees of this market, and this was the start of an activity that was very well received by the people of Barcelona.<\/p>\nThree markets in one, offer for the whole family all the time<\/h2>\n