Platja del Somorrostro: Factories, Shacks and the 1992 Beach
Why is it significant?
Walk down onto the sand of the Platja del Somorrostro and look inland, over the palm trees of the promenade. Rising above the roofs you can see a tall, slender brick tower. It is not a church tower or a lighthouse. It is a water tower from a gasworks, and it is a clue to what this coast used to be.
Key Facts
| Place | Platja del Somorrostro: Factories, Shacks and the 1992 Beach |
|---|---|
| Address | Platja del Somorrostro, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta, 08003 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.38340, 2.19570 |
| Part of Walk | Barceloneta and the Sea: Barcelona's Fishermen, Bombas and Beaches |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk down onto the sand of the Platja del Somorrostro and look inland, over the palm trees of the promenade. Rising above the roofs you can see a tall, slender brick tower. It is not a church tower or a lighthouse. It is a water tower from a gasworks, and it is a clue to what this coast used to be.
By the late nineteenth century the north side of Barceloneta had become one of the industrial hearts of Barcelona. The gas company built its works here, with that tower to supply water, and nearby stood La Maquinista Terrestre i Marítima, a great engineering works founded in the 1850s that built steam engines, ships' machinery and later locomotives. The sound of this beach, for a century, was hammers, sirens and trains.
Between the factories and the water, on the sand itself, lay the shacks of the Somorrostro, where Carmen Amaya was born. And further along the coast to the north, Poblenou was a forest of chimneys, nicknamed the Manchester of Catalonia. For the people of Barcelona, the sea was something behind a wall of railway tracks and warehouses.
Then came the Olympic plan. In the late 1980s the coastal railway was moved, factories closed, and a new seafront promenade, new beaches and an Olympic Village were built in a few years. Tons of sand were laid down, and stone breakwaters were built to stop the currents from carrying it away. The beach you are standing on, in a sense, is younger than many of the people lying on it.
And the food followed the people. Where workers once ate a cold lunch out of a tin by the gasworks gate, today there are restaurants on the promenade and people eating ice cream barefoot. Keep walking north-east along the sand or the promenade. Ahead, between two tall towers, a giant golden fish is shining in the sun.