Bunkers del Carmel

Viewpoint · El CarmelBarcelona,Spain

Open anti-aircraft platforms of 1938 on a 262-metre Barcelona hilltop, the whole city visible in every direction and a cleared neighbourhood underfoot.

Bunkers del Carmel is a set of open concrete gun platforms on a hilltop at 262 metres, and it gives the rare thing in Barcelona: the whole city at once, all the way round. The Eixample resolves into ruled lines, the Sagrada Família's towers stand clear of everything around them, the wooded ridge of Collserola closes the bowl behind you, and the sea fills the rest. There are no bunkers. The rings are anti-aircraft emplacements, built in 1938 while the city was being bombed from the air. The guns were gone within a few years. What came next lasted far longer: from the 1940s, families arriving in the city built one-room houses across the summit, a self-made neighbourhood called Els Canons that stood until the hill was cleared in 1990. Excavation has left it legible: floor tiles and knee-high wall stubs lie in the grass between the platforms. Late in the day people arrive with bread and wine and sit along the edges until the street lights come on, and the flats on the slope below hear every word.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Turn your back on the sunset — In Barcelona the sun sets over land, not sea. While everyone faces the glare, the Eixample and the Sagrada Família are the things going gold.
Sunrise is the empty shift — Low sun comes off the sea straight onto the city's facades, and nothing up here gives shade, which is the other reason to come early.
Everyone stacks onto one platform — The top ring takes the whole crowd; the lower emplacements, a minute down the slope, hold the same horizon with room to sit.
Speakers off after dark — The slope below the last platform is somebody's bedroom window, and glass left on the concrete ends up in the grass people sit on.
Wind and rain leave the clearest air, not sunshine — A blustery day separates single ships on the horizon and brings up the Garraf hills beyond the port.

Things to do

1
Read the floor of a house that is gone
Walk the grass strips between the concrete rings with your eyes down instead of out. Somewhere under your feet a floor will resolve into a room. Stand in the middle of it, decide where its door was and which way its window looked, and hold that for a minute before you look up.
2
Turn a full circle and name port, hills, river plain, coast
Stand on the top platform with the sea in front of you and turn one slow full circle. Name what you pass out loud — port, hills, ridge, river plain, coast — until you are facing the sea again. Do it in the ten minutes after sunset, when the street grid lights up block by block.
3
Save the view for the last step
The ridge hides the city until the last step, so save it. Climb the final steep stretch from El Carmel with your eyes on the path and the rooftop water tanks beside you. Look up only when the concrete is under your feet and the whole plain arrives at once.