The Block Project

As I was enjoying lunch, a glass of wine, and a good book, my mind began to wander. “I feel like I’ve been here before.” I set down my book and pulled out my phone to look at our family “Been There Done That” Google Maps list. And I had been there. Not in that restaurant, but in that location. I knew it! That caused me to start browsing — finding other places that have changed in the time we’ve been here. There were some places I had been to as three different restaurants.

The city is organic and always changing. You might walk by a closed door a dozen times without giving it any thought, only to walk by and see a brilliant new restaurant or shop reaching far back into the space behind each building as if it has always been there. Or a favorite place that closes, only to be replaced by another favorite just a few weeks later. Or sometimes you don’t even notice an absence until something new pops up.

block - Petsolt Family — Our block in the center of this photograph is always changing This project aims to follow and memorialize those changes over the course of months and years

One block, four sides, photographed as it changes — the darkened prints are Els Perduts, the ones that are gone.

Barcelona has its own compass: the sides of every block face not north and south but the sea and the mountain — Mar and Muntanya — and the two rivers that bracket the city, Llobregat and Besòs. Each section below is one face of our block. Pass over a darkened print to bring it back.