The new Soho?

Once upon a time there was a Barcelona street that attracted neither tourists nor locals. Carrer de Trafalgar traces a dog-leg path between Plaça Urquinaona and Arc de Triomf, and it used to be a place that people would quickly walk past, unless they were in the market for wholesale clothing from one of the many Chinese shops. All that has changed with the recent departure of almost all of those clothing outlets for the Merca China, an industrial park in Badalona—there’s a widely circulated myth about the ‘why’ of that relocation, having to do with zoning permits for truck deliveries, but that’s another story.

Trail-blazer Carlos Durán moved his Galeria Senda from its long-time location on the Consell de Cent art corridor to a vast space at Trafalgar 32 last autumn. Among the blue-chip artists whom he represents are Jaume Plensa and Peter Halley. Why Trafalgar? While many of his neighbours’ businesses shuttered because of rent increases in the former gallery district, that was not the case for Senda. “Our gallery needed another space for dialogue. Trafalgar offered us everything: a central location, transport connections with the whole city and newer spaces with great personality. Plus the area has a textile heritage. Two energies come together here—Sant Pere below us, with its theatres and dance, and the Eixample just above.” He sees these neighbourhoods merging and creating a new identity that will bring other businesses and the right kind of people to the street. He hesitates to call it the new Soho. “Maybe calling it the new East Village or West Village would be more appropriate.” Trafalgar does not want to become the Born, Durán notes. “In the early Nineties there was an attempt to make the Born an artists’ neighbourhood, but it was too early for the city. We’ve all grown since then and changed the way in which we use the city. The Born was a failure in that it never reached that potential. In contrast, 15 galleries have already opened in this area”, including participating venues for Durán’s Raval-based LOOP video festival.

Before Senda moved in, Ukrainian Margarita Yarmats had already picked out the space for her own shop Begemot, the name of a legendary talking black cat known to every Russian and Ukrainian schoolchild. The proprietor of a former art gallery of the same name in Mataró, Yarmats was feeling out of touch in her previous location. When she began her search for a new address, she recognised the obvious advantages of the low rent and high ceilings of properties on Trafalgar, which she had admired as a charming and under-used neighbourhood for years. Begemot Art and Fashion now has an enviable storefront location at Trafalgar 56, where Yarmats sells one-of-a-kind garments, displays works by an international roster of artists, and stages musical events to complement such art.

Mutuo, the non-profit gallery-for-hire just below Carrer de Trafalgar on the block-long Carrer de Méndez Núñez, arrived last year from its former location just off Via Laietana on Carrer de Julià Portet. The rent at the old place, which the gallerists had converted from a garage with their own blood, sweat and tears, suddenly doubled, and the financial burden made staying there impossible. Mutuo’s co-founders, Michelle Felip and Lucas Rojas, had eyed the current property a few years earlier, but they felt unsure about the area above Sant Pere, which back then seemed isolated. Now they have signed a 10-year contract. A happy ending? “The area is nice. I love the trees,” said Michelle. “Compared to Via Laietana it’s like a real neighbourhood. People actually chat with each other here.” She also likes that new shops are opening, and is delighted at the foot traffic, as people will look through the gallery windows and drop in on their walk from Gràcia to the Born. Mutuo puts on nine curated shows per year in its gallery space, while renting out a larger space behind it for events and separate exhibitions.

Estudio Nómada had outgrown its previous location on Palma de Sant Just, where classrooms and art studios shared ancient and charming, but cramped, quarters in the Barri Gòtic. So, last year, when its Dutch owner Arnout Krediet discovered that Trafalgar 55 was available, he assessed its advantages as a new location for his art school, which attracts an international group of students primarily from northern Europe. “There were huge properties available on this street that were poorly maintained, but that gave it a slightly underground feel which appealed to us,” said Krediet. “This is what artists do. They find something affordable, fix it up and make it cool.” Both the faculty and the students find Estudio Nómada’s current location appealing, 50 metres from Arc de Triomf and a five-minute walk to Park Ciutadella. The four-metre-high ceilings give the school an impressive gallery space visible from the street, which was another factor in Krediet’s decision to relocate. The renovated building now offers students a hip, central urban space in which to exhibit their work. Estudio Nómada had its grand re-opening in April.

Bombon Projects opened at Trafalgar 45 this past winter. After the success of its exhibition space Passatge in Poblenou, Joana Roda and Bernat Daviu decided to open a commercial gallery here, and they now divide their time between the two. Like the art school at number 55, the renovation was also a gut job that required the demolition of lots of low-hanging ceilings. It is now a tall and pristine white exhibition space with an office that overlooks the gallery from a mezzanine in the back. After several years of commuting between a position at Christie’s in London and his Poblenou gallery, Daviu finally decided that Barcelona was ready to become a serious art centre, and he left his day job abroad in order to focus on new ventures in his native land. “I like the challenge,” he said. Bombon celebrated its second vernissage in April with its current installation, the utilitarian artwork of Josep Maynou.

Extending one short block down from Trafalgar is a small T-shaped street called Passatge de Sant Benet. There, a Venezuelan-born couple, long-time residents of Barcelona, share a cosy, two-storey loft tucked away behind a red door on what Fernando Adam calls a ‘calle de pueblo’. The internationally acclaimed painter and sculptor became disillusioned with the boutique-ification of the Born a decade ago, and he tried out several other work spaces around the city before he and his partner landed in this neighbourhood two years ago. Adam values the long artisan history of the barrio. “One of the Chinese neighbours told me, ‘We used to sew ties here’,” he said with a smile. “As an artist, I feel welcome. I don’t feel like an intruder.” The artisanal quality of the neighbouring businesses nurtures his own work—he mentioned a local shoemaker, and the music of a Russian pianist that comes through his windows from the bookshop across the street.

His wife, the architect Carola Noguera, offered a poetic interpretation of the space that she shares with her husband (she works upstairs and he downstairs). Because of the origins of the textile industry in this very neighbourhood, Noguera feels a sense of continuity with its history, and she acknowledges the symbolism of her immediate environment in her work. “This is the architectural typology of the casa-taller,” she said of the lovely space at number 4. “It relates house and fabric.” Her goal is to contribute to the revival of the rich artistic past of the Trafalgar area and open her doors to Venezuelans and other immigrants in an effort to activate it economically through the world of textiles. Is this the new Soho then? “The Born is Soho,” observed Noguera. “We are living and creating right now the transformation of the artisanal past of this area. It will be a new nucleus for Barcelona.”