The history of Barcelona’s harbour is a tale of countless difficulties overcome thanks to determination and an enterprising spirit. Barcelona, a Mediterranean capital since medieval times, has had to fight against the elements to establish the model port it boasts today. The docks that form the Port Vell have been shaped by centuries of hard work, a Herculean labour which now finds its reward in the regeneration of one of the city’s most emblematic sites.
THE DISTANT PAST: FROM THE IBERIANS TO THE ROMANS
In around the 4th century BC, what is now Barcelona was occupied by the Laietan tribe, an Iberian people who inhabited the coastline between the Llobregat and Tordera rivers, their settlements occupying the hills between the mountains and the sea.
Perched on Mount Montjuïc, Barkeno was the main Laietan settlement in the area. From the natural harbour to the east of the mountain, these people traded with the Greek colony in Empúries, building huge grain stores for the purpose.
In the 1st century AD, the Romans founded a colony, Barcino, on Mount Tàber, where Plaça de Sant Jaume now stands. The first port activity on the northern side of Montjuïc, approximately between what is now the Moll de Bosch i Alsina (Moll de la Fusta) and the Drassanes boatyards, dates to this period.
The city and its maritime activities began to truly flourish and expand when Barcino’s city walls were built after the Barbarian invasion in 263.
MEDIEVAL SPLENDOUR: A MARITIME EMPIRE WITHOUT A PORT
During the agitated period that was the Late Middle Ages, Barcelona found itself on the frontier between the two great medieval worlds: Islam to the south and Christianity to the north. This strategic location was decisive in Barcelona’s growth, for the city became established as a trading point between the two worlds and, eventually, the greatest maritime power in the Mediterranean.
Barcelona’s Royal Shipyards, or Drassanes Reials, built between the 13th and 14th centuries and today one of the best conserved examples of Gothic civil architecture in the world, provide excellent proof of the medieval city’s naval power.
Barcelona dominated the Mediterranean, without doubt, but it did so despite not possessing a port worthy of the name. The ships that anchored between the Royal Shipyards and the city were badly exposed to the great storms that often affect this coast and which caused many shipwrecks just off the city itself.
Not only did these storms sink vessels, but they also made it enormously difficult to build an artificial harbour to provide shelter and a place where cargo could be loaded and unloaded easily, because the huge amounts of sand and sediment deposited as a result of these phenomena damaged any work, whether ongoing or already complete.
The Port of Barcelona is the product of huge efforts over the centuries to overcome obstacles of all kinds, particularly those caused by meteorological phenomena.
MODERN TIMES: THE ORIGINS OF THE PRESENT PORT, A FIGHT AGAINST SAND
Work on the first successful project began in 1477. The enterprise entailed building a dock that would stretch as far as Maians Island, a sandy islet a hundred metres or so off the coast. This project marked the true birth of the Port of Barcelona.
As the dyke that sheltered the harbour was extended in various stages to the south and southwest of Maians Island, sand was also deposited in huge quantities on the beach to the southeast of the Ciutadella or citadel. The Barceloneta neighbourhood was later built on this new peninsula.
However, despite the constant work to extend the dyke (which reached what is now the Moll de Pescadors in 1723), in 1743 huge amounts of sand that had accumulated finally collapsed the port. An enormous sandbank between the dyke’s end and what is now Plaça del Portal de la Pau made it necessary to close the port, trapping some ships inside and leaving others out. The beacon in the Moll de Pescadors dock, since converted into a clocktower, was built a little later, in 1772.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: A TIME OF GREAT SOLUTIONS
In order to provide a definitive solution to the problem of harbour depth, work began in 1816 to extend the breakwater, which reached what is now the floating dyke in 1882. However, a newly-formed sandbank showed that even this was not sufficient, and the dyke was enlarged once more, whilst an outer harbour wall was also built and the port mouth was moved to what is now the West Dock, or Moll de Ponent.
In 1868, the Barcelona authorities requested permission from the Development Ministry to constitute the Port of Barcelona Board of Public Works (Junta d’obres), which met for the first time in 1869. This institution, a veritable experiment in decentralisation, continued to operate until 1978, more than a century after it was first established.
It was under this Board of Public Works that the port’s structure was at last consolidated and the danger from sand and storms finally consigned to history.
Construction of the first “transversal” dock, where the Moll de Barcelona (Barcelona Dock) now stands, was completed in 1882. This dock later housed the Jaume I cable car tower, built across the harbour for the 1929 Universal Exhibition.
RECENT HISTORY: EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
The Port continued to grow, stretching past Mount Montjuïc towards the Llobregat Delta with the construction of an inner harbour on the river bank, precisely where, more than two thousand years previously, Barcelona’s first port activity had its remote origins.
The port’s Statute of Autonomy was approved in 1978, when the site took on the official title of Autonomous Port of Barcelona, and in 1987 work began on drafting the Strategic Plan, an ambitious project to develop the whole port. Offices of public works were dissolved in 1992, and port authorities were established to replace them. That is why the Port of Barcelona is now known as the Port Authority of Barcelona.
Under the Strategic Plan, the port is structured around three main areas: the commercial port, the logistical port and the old port. The plan pays particular attention to the last of these, the Port Vell, with a view to reviving a historic old site made obsolete by large-scale extension work in recent decades and relegated to serving traditional purposes.
Nowadays, the Port Vell is fully integrated into the city, serving its people. This is a site where tradition and history merge with modernity and utility to create one of the most outstanding attractions in Barcelona.
A port, a city and a long history linking Barcelona to the sea.
