Although architecturally Barcelona is a city that is enjoyed by looking upwards, today we are going to stop to contemplate the ground of the sidewalks. In most streets of our city, we will observe a small square tile with a flower engraved in negative relief. Normal, right? What if we told you that this typical concrete tile is one of the gifts that Modernism has bequeathed to us? It's not about stopping to step on them or taking selfies with each of the tiles we find along the way. But if we dedicate posts to all those genuine elements of our city, it is only fair that we do the same with the panot or flower of Barcelona.
To understand its origin, one must go back to the late 19th century. With the fall of the walls, the urbanization of the current Eixample began, which was carried out in a disorganized manner, as each neighbor was responsible for paving the 2.5 meters directly in front of their house. For this, only the materials authorized by the city council could be used: asphalt, natural stone, or cement, as pointed out by Danae Esparza, an industrial designer in her thesis “The Barcelona model of public space and urban design”. As a result, the paving was so chaotic that Barcelona was full of mud, becoming known in the satirical magazines of the time as Can Fanga.
Given that situation, tiling the floor became the best solution. In 1906, five models of tiles were standardized: the flower, the skull, the concentric circles, the four tablets with four circles, and finally, the four tablets, although ultimately the most recurrent and symbolic of our city has turned out to be the "flower panot", a 20 x 20 cm concrete piece that currently covers about five million square meters of Barcelona's flooring.
Aunque con la propia Esparza como voz discordante, el diseño tan característico del panot ha sido siempre atribuido al arquitecto Josep Puig i Cadafalch, ya que el dibujo coincide con el de las losas que adornan el vestíbulo de la Casa Amatller, también diseñada por él.
Gaudí Tile: 6 sides to create an infinite mosaic
On the exterior of the building, another type of tile spreads throughout Paseo de Gracia. It is the Gaudí tile, which as its name suggests was designed by Antonio Gaudí, becoming his most famous non-architectural work, which has even been exhibited at the MoMA in New York. The main peculiarity of this design is that it is hexagonal, breaking with the existing tradition of making square tiles. The decoration of the tile is designed with marine motifs, which can only be appreciated if six other tiles are added around a central one. Only then can we see that they depict a conch shell, a starfish, and seaweed. If we continue fitting corresponding pieces on the sides of each tile, we will observe that the floor of Paseo de Gracia becomes an infinite mosaic. As for its marine theme, it is because it was originally designed to pave Casa Batlló, where the sea and water are omnipresent from floor to floor, although it ultimately ended up being used on the floor of La Pedrera.
As an interesting fact, it is worth mentioning that the company Escofet 1886 SA was responsible for manufacturing the pavement as early as 1906 and has been in charge of its subsequent replacements whenever there have been works or renovations in the area, as they preserve, among other materials from that time, the metal mold made from the original wax model that Gaudí 'shaped with his own hands', or at least that is what they claim. Whether true or not, the legacy of the genius from Reus extends far beyond his masterpieces, a legacy that is easily identifiable in Barcelona. Although that topic would make for another post.
