Plaça de Sant Felip Neri (Saint Philip Neri Square)

Chapter 2/11 · Barcelona

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Before turning, at the end of Carrer del Bisbe you saw its famous flamboyant Gothic bridge, which links the Palau de la Generalitat with the Casa dels Canonges. It looks medieval, but it was built by the architect Joan Rubió i Bellver in 1928. Rubió himself once said that “the Gothic Quarter does not exist”, a phrase that sums up the debate about the area's authenticity.

This quiet square was built over the old medieval cemetery of Montjuïc del Bisbe and is dominated by the Baroque church of Sant Felip Neri. It is surrounded by Renaissance houses, among them the old guild houses of the coppersmiths and the shoemakers; the latter houses the Shoe Museum. In the centre there is a fountain with an octagonal base.

Look at the church walls: the marks are from the shrapnel of a bomb dropped by the rebel side's air force on 30 January 1938, during the Spanish Civil War. Forty-two people died, most of them children sheltering in the church's basement. When the area was rebuilt, the municipal architect Adolfo Florensa recreated the square using Renaissance façades from other buildings.

We leave along Carrer de Sant Sever and walk down Carrer dels Banys Nous and Carrer de l'Ave Maria to the Plaça de Sant Josep Oriol, next to Santa Maria del Pi.

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