ABSTRACT
Nowadays, when presentation seems to be everything, Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter or ‘Barri Gòtic’ could be taken for an authentic, carefully preserved, medieval district. Despite this, however, it was devised and built between the 1920s and 50s and not in the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth centuries as one would be led to believe by its name – which was conceived along with the quarter itself. As a result of this construction process, Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, as it is known to this day and which has barely changed since its consolidation in the 1960s, has imprecise boundaries. All told, it is rather difficult to define. It is not an authentic quarter and neither is it a restoration, a 1:1 reconstruction or a fake, although its construction was indeed inspired by the idealization of certain Gothic buildings. The Barri Gòtic stands halfway between all these things. It is at once both completely authentic and completely artificial. It is an imaginary and idealized space which did not previously exist but which was created using real Gothic stonework and buildings reconfigured around seven real Gothic structures – including Barcelona’s cathedral, the Royal Chapel of Santa Àgueda and the Tinell Hall.
