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Credits

Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1837-1915 · Public domain

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LOVE OUTSIDE THE RULES — a club that vanished with its street

On arrival

Stand in Plaça de Jean Genet near Avinguda de les Drassanes and Carrer del Cid. The historical venue no longer survives, so do not hunt for a preserved doorway.

Look closer

Look at how open and recent the square feels compared with the tight street pattern around it; the absence of the old Carrer del Cid fabric is part of the stop.

Our romantic comedy begins with a missing set: the people existed, the venue existed, but the city later removed the scenery.

Start with an absence. La Criolla opened in 1925 at Carrer del Cid 10, in the district then commonly called the Barri Xino. Barcelona's City of Literature documents a socially mixed venue with dancing, gender-nonconforming performers and homosexual prostitution; Jean Genet later wrote about his own experience of the neighbourhood. The club was hit by an Italian bomb in 1938 and the later remaking of this part of the Raval erased the building and much of the old street fabric. That makes the present Plaça de Jean Genet useful precisely because it does not look romantic or nostalgic. The city has removed the room, but not the evidence that forms of desire existed outside respectable social rules.

Accessibility at this stop

Public urban square on street level. Exact kerbs, temporary works and the safest stopping position require current human verification.

These notes describe known conditions at this stop. Urban conditions can change, so assess the situation on site.

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