Bar Barcelona
The legendary Barcelona Bar was a place to eat and drink, but above all, it functioned as an alternative stronghold of Kraków’s intellectual life. For students living in the Żaczek dormitory and walking along what was then Manifestu Lipcowego Street, it was a stop for a beer on the way to vodka at “Żyd.” For everyone else, it served as a space for exchanging opinions, ideas, and worldviews.
Law students, poets, painters, and members of Kraków’s wider artistic milieu gathered there. Among them were Antoni Potoczek, Adam Ziemianin, Bronisław Maj, Jerzy Gizella, Jan Pieszczachowicz, Krzysztof Krcha, Andrzej Warzecha, and editor Czubała.
But Barcelona is gone. It disappeared. First transformed into a modest alcohol-free bar, then into a shop, it was eventually announced that a large tenement building would replace the small corner house that once stood there. Sic transit gloria mundi…
It is striking that so many different people and stories could be connected through one shabby bar — a place people supposedly visited only for the company, as the food was notoriously bad. Yet it was precisely the relationship people had with this place that turned it into a stronghold — one that stood, functioned, and brought people together for nearly a century.
The project was realized on the exact site where the bar once stood. Because the premises had shared walls with two adjacent buildings, traces of it remained visible after demolition. It was on this exposed wall — the physical remnant of Barcelona — that Adam Ziemianin’s poem Barcelona was painted.
The project received an award in the Fresh Zone competition (ArtBoom Festival).