Miró's Mosaic and the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Why is it significant?
Look down at your feet. You are standing on a big circle of red, yellow, blue and black, with Joan Miró's unmistakable shapes, stars, eyes, a comet, set into the pavement of La Rambla. Thousands of people walk over it every hour without noticing that it is a work of art.
Key Facts
| Place | Miró's Mosaic and the Gran Teatre del Liceu |
|---|---|
| Address | Pla de la Boqueria, La Rambla 51, 08002 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.38090, 2.17340 |
| Part of Walk | La Rambla and El Raval: Barcelona's River of Sand, Opera Bombs and Gaudí's Last Days |
| Generated | Generated |
Look down at your feet. You are standing on a big circle of red, yellow, blue and black, with Joan Miró's unmistakable shapes, stars, eyes, a comet, set into the pavement of La Rambla. Thousands of people walk over it every hour without noticing that it is a work of art.
Miró made this mosaic in 1976, for the square called the Pla de l'Os, or Pla de la Boqueria. He was born in 1893 a few streets away, in the old city, and he chose this spot, it is said, because travellers arriving by sea used to walk up past it from the port. Somewhere in the tiles is a single one with his signature. It is a public joke and a public gift at once: the most valuable floor in Barcelona, made to be stepped on.
Now turn to the long, rather modest facade nearby. That is the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona's opera house, opened in 1847. From the street it looks almost shy, but inside lies what was for a long time one of the largest auditoriums in Europe, horseshoe-shaped, red and gold, where the city's bourgeoisie came as much to be seen as to listen.
That is exactly why it became a target. On 7 November 1893, during a performance of Rossini's William Tell, the anarchist Santiago Salvador threw two bombs from the upper gallery into the stalls. Only one exploded, but it killed around twenty people, and the city's high society never quite felt safe in its velvet seats again. The bomb that failed to explode was kept, and is now in the collection of the city's history museum.
And then, on 31 January 1994, a spark during repair work set the stage curtain alight, and in a few hours the whole auditorium burned. Barcelona decided almost immediately to rebuild it as it had been, with modern machinery behind the old gold, and the Liceu reopened in 1999. Now continue down the Raval side of La Rambla, past the Liceu, and turn right into Carrer Nou de la Rambla. Watch for two strange iron arches on your right.