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The Neighborhoods
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The Major Festival of Gràcia of the neighbourhood is a festival is the most happening and popular of Barcelona. Celebrations tend to be during the second fortnight of August and one of its strong points is the engalanada of the streets: the residents convert in to decorators and transform streets and squares in to fantasy stages.
This popular festival is relatively young, like the same population of Gràcia, and grew in the mid XIX. In any case, the first reference of this celebration is older and dates back to 1817.
The historians have not yet determined if the reason for this festival started with the adoration of Mare de Deu d'Agost, corresponding on the 15th, or to Sant Roc, on the 16th. In any case, the festival lost its religious sense and gave way to focus a more civic impulse by the numerous worker and recreational entities.
In its origins, the Gràcia festivals developed basically around traditional dances and popular games. During the second half of XIX Century the first traces appear, of which later converts in to the most different characteristic of this celebration: the engalanat of the streets. Associations, shops and neighbours start to decorate gardens and streets and lift covers. Also during this time, various literary contests begin.
In the ´20´s of the XX Century, the first contests of street decorating commenced and in the ´30´s the first coordination of activities occurred: the Comitè de Fires i Festes de Gràcia (Committee of Fairs and Festivals of Gràcia).
The Civil War presumed a parenthesis in the celebrations, just when, the festive activities returned, without losing irony and satire of the political situation of the moment. The decoration of a street is remembered especially referred to the old Falange (meaning phalanx formation – fascist political parties from the ´30´s) shirts decorated in a street that caused a lot of stir.
Because of this, the streets that were decorated went up to the ´70´s, but from the ´60´s started to diminished. In contrary sense, the dances increased and the other free shows of the squares of the neighbourhood.
Presently, the streets and squares still get decorated with major tradition, paper, plastic and cardboard based and with the most diverse themes. The residents work during the whole year to exhibit their demonstration and imagination. Also, open air concerts, popular dinners and activities in general repeat themselves in the whole district and the festival attracts a multitude of Barcelonans and foreigners looking for a good time.
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