El Raval Barcelona: Art, Culture and Multicultural Street Life

El Raval occupies the western half of Barcelona's old city, a neighbourhood that has been the most contested, colourful and misunderstood corner of the Catalan capital for centuries. Historically the district outside the city walls where hospitals, brothels, convents and the poor were kept at a distance from respectable society, the Raval transformed dramatically in the 1990s and 2000s when investment in culture and the opening of the Rambla del Raval promenade began attracting architects, artists and young professionals. The neighbourhood remains rough-edged, gloriously multicultural and authentically itself — less manicured than the Gothic Quarter, more interesting for it.

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, universally known by its Catalan acronym MACBA, anchors the cultural quarter with Richard Meier's brilliant white building that stands in deliberate contrast to the ancient stone around it. The museum's permanent collection spans Spanish and international contemporary art from the 1950s to the present, while the plaza in front has become a legendary skateboarding spot whose concrete surfaces attract riders from across Europe. The adjacent Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona provides exhibition space, film screenings and public programming that keeps the neighbourhood intellectually alive.

The Boqueria market — technically called the Mercat de Sant Josep — occupies a spectacular iron-and-glass 19th-century hall on the Rambla and remains one of the great food markets of Europe despite its tourist popularity. Early morning, when local chefs and neighbourhood residents shop for the day, reveals the market at its most authentic: Catalan cheeses, wild mushrooms from the Pyrenees, enormous prawns from the Costa Brava and the incomparable Iberian ham that hangs in magnificent cured legs at the charcuterie stalls. The Raval's side streets harbour a growing number of independent restaurants serving Pakistani, Middle Eastern, Filipino and Sri Lankan food that reflects the neighbourhood's global population.