Raval Street Art and Culture

The concrete wall on the Plaça dels Àngels holds a deep, geometric relief carved directly into the gray surface. Eduardo Chillida designed this piece in nineteen ninety-eight, long after he became famous for his massive iron sculptures…

The mural features a jagged red serpent tangled with figures, painted in neon green and black on the side of a concrete building. Keith Haring drew it in one afternoon in nineteen eighty-nine using a spray can, with the words We Can Work…

El Anden is a narrow shopfront in El Raval marked by a rolling metal gate covered in layers of spray paint. It exists as one of the few places in Barcelona dedicated entirely to graffiti artists. The shop owner, a former writer himself,…

Carrer d'En Roig features a narrow, shadowed path where the buildings lean close enough to nearly touch. Named for the Roig family who held property here in the fourteenth century, the street once served as the site of a medieval hospital…

The bronze cat in the Rambla del Raval stretches over two meters tall and nearly seven meters long, with a heavy, rounded belly and a smooth, oversized snout. Fernando Botero designed this feline to be oversized and tactile. Since its…

A chain-link fence topped with barbed wire surrounds the vacant lot at the corner of Carrer de la Cera and Carrer de l'Hospital. This space exists because neighbors tore down the wall of a construction site in two thousand thirteen. They…

The monastery of Sant Pau del Camp remains the oldest church in Barcelona, its small, weathered Romanesque structure standing in stark contrast to the modern density of the Raval district. Its distinctive feature is the tri-lobed arches in…

The Teatre Arnau building wears a fading, skeletal facade of gray plaster and arched windows that mark the only remnant of a once-fabled musical hall. Built in nineteen oh three, the structure spent decades as a stage for zarzuela,…