Els Encants Vells

Market · Glòries (Sant Martí)Barcelona,Spain

A Barcelona flea market seven centuries old, trading house clearances and tools under a folded mirrored canopy that shows the stalls back upside down.

Els Encants is a flea market under a single mirrored roof. The canopy is one folded plane, tilted so that it reflects the market underneath, and from the ground floor you look up and see the stalls, the buyers and yourself, upside down and broken into facets. Ramps spiral up around the edges to more shops above. Underneath it the trade is what it has always been: house clearances, tools, furniture, records and things nobody can name. A second-hand market has run in Barcelona since the medieval city, documented from the fourteenth century, and it has moved around ever since. Most recently it moved in 2013, when it left the open lot it had occupied since 1928. Nothing about the trade changed, and the traders are the same families. On market mornings the ground floor still runs a live shouted auction of whole house clearances: bidders stand in a ring and lots go in seconds. It is one of the last public sales of that kind left in western Europe.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Check the day before you go — the market is closed on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, and arriving on one of those days means a shut canopy and nothing else at Glories to make the trip worthwhile.
Dealers come before the public does — the professionals arrive first and work the new lots over, so anything unusual has usually changed hands before most visitors reach the building.
The good ground is the bottom, not the top — the upper ramps hold established shops with fixed prices, while the raw house clearances are laid out on the floor at the lowest level.
Shoot upward from the middle — the mirrored ceiling puts the whole market overhead in fragments, and it is the one frame here you cannot get anywhere else in the city.

Things to do

1
Watch the ring rather than the auctioneer
On a trading morning the ground floor clears a circle and an auctioneer starts calling. Stay at the back and watch the hands rather than listen. Bids are made with a lifted finger and a nod, lots go in a few seconds, and the crowd re-forms around the next heap without anybody explaining what happened.
2
Ride the ramps to the top level
Take the spiral ramps that climb the edges of the building. From the highest level the market lies below you in one view, with the mirrored roof directly overhead doubling it. This is the only point where you see the whole trade at once, stalls, ramps and buyers together.
3
Pick one object and ask what it costs
Pick something specific from a floor heap, a tool, a tin, a photograph, and ask. There is no ticket on it and the answer depends on who you are and what time it is. Haggling is expected and quick, and it is the only way to see how the place actually works.