Is Mercat de Santa Caterina worth it for photographers?
Worth itFor photos
For beauty & photography, Mercat de Santa Caterina delivers.
The thing to do here is eat, not just photograph the famous roof. Yes, Miralles and Tagliabue's rippling, 325,000-tile wave-roof is a design landmark best caught from the upper streets — but the real draw for a visitor is Cuines Santa Caterina, the excellent market restaurant inside, plus tapas counters where you sit among locals five minutes from the cathedral and a fraction as mobbed as La Boqueria. Below the roof are also exposed ruins of a medieval convent and Roman remains. The catch: it's smaller than La Boqueria, so if you're not eating, the visit really is just the roof and a quick loop.
Mercat de Santa Caterina (originally 1848, Barcelona's first covered market) was rebuilt 2005 with an undulating coloured ceramic roof designed by Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue. · barcelonaturisme.com
The renovation exposed remains of the medieval Santa Caterina convent, now shown in the basement as part of MUHBA. · meet.barcelona