Barcelona’s Sagrada Família has a new layer of history, a 1908 photograph shows that many of the plane trees around the temple are at least 118 years old. The image matters now because the city council is planning to cut back the number of these pollen-heavy trees across Barcelona.
Plane trees are a familiar part of spring in the city, but their pollen can cause sneezing and itchy eyes for many residents. The Ajuntament wants plane trees to make up just 15% of Barcelona’s more than 206,000 trees by 2027, as part of its wider tree management plan.
Most of Barcelona’s plane trees are in Sant Martí and Eixample. The Eixample, home to more than 260,000 residents, has a particularly high concentration of them, a pattern linked to the Cerdà Plan and the city’s late 19th and early 20th century street design. At the time, plane trees were widely available for planting in major European cities, including London and Paris.
The 1908 photograph was recovered by CatalunyaColor, an online profile that colours old black and white photos from across Catalonia. It shows the unfinished Sagrada Família from Carrer de Mallorca, on the mountain-facing pavement, with a shepherd, a flock and several young plane trees. The original image was taken by French photojournalist Charles Chusseau-Flaviens.
The trees’ height, and the growth supports visible in the photo, suggest they had only recently been planted when the picture was taken. Antoni Gaudí had already been leading construction of the temple for more than two decades at that point. The image is a clear reminder that some of Barcelona’s current street trees are part of the city’s own history, even as the council moves to change how it manages them.
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Originally published by Tot Barcelona. Read original article.
