Mercat de Colón: the geese stayed on the wall

The neighborhood demanded its market. The Ensanche had nowhere to buy food. The city hall set aside a block on the site of a former gasworks and gave the project to its architect, Francisco Mora, who looked to the Catalan modernists. Work began in 1914. Planned for twelve months, it took twenty-eight, and the market was inaugurated on Christmas Eve 1916.

The decoration sits at the two ends. Two brick gables close off the hall, each pierced by an immense arch. Blue medallions with a gilded button follow its curve, one by one. Above, the mosaic is an orchard: two women in traditional dress, gilded combs in their hair and pearls at their necks, arms full of flowers, beneath orange trees heavy with fruit. On the other side of the arch, the grape harvest is under way.

The stone keeps the farmyard. Under a medallion, two geese stretch their necks toward a bunch of fruit, rabbits huddle against each other, a hen lowers her head before a rooster standing tall on his legs. These are the animals that were sold inside. The sculptor Ricardo Tárrega was the principal craftsman of these reliefs.

Between the gables, nothing stops the eye. That was the novelty of this market: it is open, and you can see through it. Cast-iron pillars carry three naves of riveted iron; around them, a fence of iron and stone. It is along the long sides that the hall is most transparent.

The flowers have their stalls at the foot of the towers. The towers are round, in brick; a pink mosaic roof rises on each like a corolla, and a glass canopy spreads beneath it, ribbed like a leaf.

The market has known ruin. After a long period of neglect, it was restored and inaugurated again in 2003, with one level of shops and three levels of underground parking. The glass-fronted shops are mostly places to go out. Under domes of glazed tile, the former city hall annex has become a restaurant, with mosaic vaults by the ceramicist Lluís Bru. Outside, the geese still stretch their necks toward their fruit.