Carnations, boxwood, and broom. Floral carpets are a deeply rooted popular tradition in Catalonia, with over 700 years of history and associated with the religious Corpus Christi Festival. A very traditional event in areas like Sitges, la Garriga, Girona, and Arbúcies, which is being revived in Barcelona, and which fills streets and squares with good smells and vibrant color mosaics made with thousands and thousands of flowers and petals. This festivity, however, also has a strong carpet-making tradition in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, where it has been celebrated again this year on the street that started this tradition: Sant Jeroni street.
History of the carpet-making tradition in Santa Coloma de Gramenet
It was the 1950s when Escola Fuster on Sant Jeroni street in Santa Coloma de Gramenet promoted, for the first time, the celebration of floral carpets. The residents of Santa Coloma would go to the fields of Vilassar de Mar to collect carnations, and to the Sant Jeroni mountain to gather boxwood and broom. Over the years, the day became one of the city's most emblematic cultural events, with Sant Jeroni street as its epicenter.
“Despite its popularity, in 1964 it stopped being widely practiced in many towns in Catalonia. In Santa Coloma, there was a time when it was not organized,” explains Manel Pérez, president of the Associació de Catifaires de Santa Coloma. During this hiatus, the shopkeepers of Sant Jeroni street revived the floral tradition in 1993, extending it to other streets in the old town of Santa Coloma, such as Carrer Major and Anselm Clavé, all the way to Plaça de la Vila.
The organizers themselves founded what would become the current Associació de Catifaires de Santa Coloma, which is part of the Catalan Federation of Carpet Makers. During the Corpus Christi flower carpet celebrations, other local entities such as the Gegants i Capgrossos de Santa Coloma de Gramenet participate during the day, in this tone that vindicates Catalan identity and popular culture.
Current events and XXI edition of the carpets and traditional treading
The carpet makers' association has thirty-three years of history in the city, being the great reference in Santa Coloma for the organization of this exhibition of ephemeral art, through flowers and petals. Despite its good intentions, the Covid-19 pandemic made it impossible to celebrate the day of floral carpets, canceling two editions in 2020 and 2021.
It wasn't until the following year that the carpets returned to the city with an innovative proposal. In order to boost the city's cultural fabric, the association decided to change the location of the carpets each year and distribute them across Santa Coloma's six districts. Other emblematic spots such as the Sagarra Market and the Plaça del Rellotge have hosted the event, along with the collaboration of neighborhood civic centers and schools, where the entity organizes workshops to design the carpets, using dyed materials and soil, and to get a first glimpse of what the floral carpet will look like on the day of the celebration.
For the XXXI edition, the entity has once again organized it in its place of origin: Sant Jeroni street. For its realization, students from 4th grade at Riera Alta School and students from 5th and 6th grade at Fuster School participated. The carpets were prepared during the morning of June 7, in a solemn act that gathered hundreds of families. The traditional trampling took place in the afternoon, led by the group of Giants and Big-Heads of Santa Coloma, along with Draconaires de Santa Coloma, who paraded over the carpets to the sound of drums.
