Rambla del Raval and Botero's Cat
Why is it significant?
There it is: a huge, round, bronze cat, sitting smugly on the pavement with its tail curled up, its face somewhere between a smile and a sneer. Children climb it, tourists pose with it, and its paws are polished bright. This is El Gat, the Cat, by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero.
Key Facts
| Place | Rambla del Raval and Botero's Cat |
|---|---|
| Address | Rambla del Raval, 08001 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.37880, 2.16910 |
| Part of Walk | La Rambla and El Raval: Barcelona's River of Sand, Opera Bombs and Gaudí's Last Days |
| Generated | Generated |
There it is: a huge, round, bronze cat, sitting smugly on the pavement with its tail curled up, its face somewhere between a smile and a sneer. Children climb it, tourists pose with it, and its paws are polished bright. This is El Gat, the Cat, by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero.
Botero, famous for his inflated, generously rounded figures, made this cat in 1987, and Barcelona bought it. Then the city did not quite know where to put it. Over the following years the poor animal wandered: it sat in the Parc de la Ciutadella near the zoo, then by the Olympic stadium on Montjuïc, then near the old shipyards. Only in 2003 did it finally settle here, and it seems unlikely to move again. Cats choose their own place, after all.
Now look at the boulevard itself. The Rambla del Raval feels as if it has always been here, with its palm trees, benches and terraces, but it opened only around the year 2000. To make it, the city demolished several entire blocks of old, overcrowded housing, and many families were rehoused. It was the most radical of the operations to open up El Raval, and it is still argued about: more light and air, but also the loss of streets and communities that had stood for centuries.
Today it is the living room of one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in Europe. Pakistani, Filipino, Moroccan and Bangladeshi families live alongside older Catalan neighbours and young newcomers, and on a summer evening you hear a dozen languages from the benches. The halal butchers, Filipino bakeries and old bars of the side streets are El Raval as it really is now.
Give the cat a pat on the nose before you go, everyone does. Then walk back down to Carrer de Sant Pau and turn right, heading west. A couple of minutes on, a small, low church of rough stone sits in a garden behind railings, looking far older than anything around it.