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If Spain were a map, it would be an earth-hued, respectable map with a uniform mix of modern and medieval charm. But if you slid your finger around the map, you would suddenly come upon a pulsating splash of color spilling into the Mediterranean just southeast of the Pyrenees Mountains: Barcelona, Spain’s second largest city.

Drawing nearer, an appealing mosaic unfolds: Barcelona’s hedge of green hills, the ancient shadows of the Gothic quarter, a kaleidoscope of cars on the Avenida Diagonal, the pedestrian-studded Les Rambles thoroughfare, and ribbons of golden beach lacing the blue waterfront. The structures jutting forth from the chaos of older streets and the well-planned, post-Olympics districts would mesmerize you, from French architect Jean Nouvel’s recent Agbar Tower — a torpedo of a skyscraperwith 4,400 irregular windows swathed in multicolored glass — to the four fantasy-infused bell towers of Modernist Antoni Gaudí’s yet-unfinished 1882 Sagrada Familia church.

A collection of rings made with Greek, Assyrian, Roman, and Egyptian beads by Arqueojoya. The beads date from 1800 B.C. to the first century B.C.

Barcelona is unique not only on the surface level, with its lavish architectural legacies of the turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau movement, but also in its very essence. On the one hand, it’s a fiercely individualistic city, proud of its heritage and holding tenaciously to its regional Catalan language and customs, repressed for years and finally officially recognized in the late 1970s. On the other hand, it’s been a commercial port for centuries, a gateway to the world beyond and accepting of many influences beyond the traditional Spanish ones.

This synergy of individualism and openness puts Barcelona on the cutting edge, making it an inspiring, flourishing, design-savvy cosmopolitan center. To taste this, you can do anything from admiring the works of three of the world’s greatest surrealist painters — Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró, all Catalans — to stepping into the current world of vanguard Barcelona clothing, furniture, or jewelry designers.

Barcelona’s jewelry reflects the mix of moods in the city itself, conveying both the individual style and the city’s place in European design in a beautiful, colorful mix.

The sea inspired J. Miguel Barberà of Hàbit to make this cuff in 18K gold and platinum, set with a single aquamarine and melee diamonds, from his El somni de Nemo (Nemo’s Dream) line.

It’s the immediacy of the Mediterranean that’s captured the imagination of Barcelonan designer J. Miguel Barberà of Hàbit, who follows German gemstone-cutting techniques in his bold, artistic jewelry.

“Life in Barcelona has been 100 percent influential in my designs,” he said. “Just being close to a marine space with its flow of colors, organic forms, and good atmosphere — all of this is influential. In northern Europe, the jewelry is more like ice, representing perfect symmetry and pure mathematics. In Barcelona, we have a more relaxed feel, freshness, and changeability, and this very different perspective helps us produce diverse and surprising collections.”

Barberà founded Hàbit, his workshop and gallery, in the early ’90s, but he didn’t step out with “crazy and aggressive lines” of jewelry, as he puts it, until 1999.

“We like doing innovative things. Here in Barcelona we can do that and have a decent outlet, whereas people from Madrid tell us it would be complicated to sell our pieces there. Even so, we have clients from all over Spain and other parts of the world,” he said.

Barberà concentrates on obtaining large, high-quality, untreated gemstones of up to about 200 carats, which he values for their “marvelous color” — heliodor, aquamarine, rubellite, fire opal, citrine, kunzite, and Japanese moro coral in reds and light blues, among others. These he mounts in gold and platinum, always stressing the centrality of the gemstone. He leans toward lapidary techniques that are not yet widely used in Spain, such as the German tendency to use processes that result in a rough, scratched surface.

J. Miguel Barberà of Hàbit uses goldwork underneath aquamarine to convey the idea of water in this ring from the El somni de Nemo (Nemo’s Dream) line.

“The stones we use emanate light, color, and life,” said Barberà. He enthusiastically described his recent exposition titled Nemo’s Dream, named after the captain in Jules Verne’s novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Among the jewelry displayed was a gold and platinum ring with a large aquamarine used to create an underwater effect.

“What’s important is not only the exterior refraction, but also the symbiosis of gemstone and jewelry — the optical effect,” said Barberà, describing other pieces that evoked a sunset or a mysterious chalice. “This is the magic of gemstone and light, using the gemstone for all that it’s worth. Our pieces have a dreamlike quality that is such that if you close your eyes, you’re still seeing the desert, which is what that particular piece might transmit.”

Barberà emphasized that because his jewelry is artistic and not industrial, they carry the maker’s sensations and values, something completely influenced by location.

“Our jewelry transmits the fact that we live in the open, not shut in at home, even at night. You can go dancing at 3 a.m. and then, at six, eat squid rings at the Boquería Market, where you’ll find an overwhelming display of color and light — yes, inspiration. This is Barcelona,” he said.

That vision of Barcelona has helped him to create an organic, creative line of jewelry that differs from those found in other European countries, even countries similar to Spain, such as Italy or Greece.

“We are not as weighed down by history and archaeology as Italy or Greece would be, for example, and this gives us the freedom to create new designs,” Barberà concluded.

History and archaeology, however, have not weighed down another Barcelona jewelry designer, Estrella Cervera, co-owner of Arqueojoya with her sister Iris. Rather, the past has inspired the sisters to create a line of jewelry that, in Cervera’s words, “unites two arts in time: archaeology and goldsmithing.

“You could say that Barcelona has inspired us insofar as its dynamics,” she continued. “There is a lot of cultural movement here. It’s a city that’s ‘in,’ and this gives us a modern, contemporary outlook.”

ABOVE, TOP: Inspired by the sea, Núria Saloni combines organic gemstones with textured goldwork. BOTTOM: This pendant from Núria Saloni’s Plec & Pearl collection shows off the designer’s love of Tahitian pearls.

Such an outlook helped the Cervera sisters see potential in the small archaeological pieces the family had been collecting and displaying, along with much larger ancient sculptures and works of art, for over 40 years in the F. Cervera Gallery.

“This world of archaeology influenced us from a very young age, and all three of us siblings ended up studying archaeology,” she said. “Our father always communicated a very important message to us, one without which we could never do our work — feeling for art.”

That feeling for art, combined with the two sisters’ studies in jewelry design, led to the idea of “rescuing” a whole range of tiny archaeological pieces from a sterile display. “We had all these small bronze appliqués, Greek seals, Byzantine crosses . . . a little bit of everything from all the ancient cultures — Egyptian, Roman, Mesopotamian. We asked ourselves what we could do so that these pieces could come to life and not just be left encased in glass,” Cervera said.

The sisters began to turn the Egyptian amulets, Greek buttons, Roman fibulas, and other pieces into jewelry that could be worn, enabling Arqueojoya to be launched last year.

Cervera crafts each piece by hand, meticulously studying the certified, unrestored artifact beforehand to ensure that it will remain intact should it need to be removed from the jewelry some day.

“What fascinates us is that each archaeological piece has its own story,” she said. “For example, the Romans all dressed alike, so what distinguished them was the type of fibula or brooch they used. There are actually 1,800 different types of fibulae representing different societal classes.”

Depending on the design, Cervera uses colored gemstones such as amber, agate, onyx, lapis lazuli, ruby, emerald, topaz, sapphire, opal, or pearl to frame or complement the archaeological piece, always ensuring that it receives the most attention.

“What stands out is the 3,500-year-old piece, so it’s convenient not to overdress it,” she said.

The end result — Arqueojoya’s line of earrings, brooches, bracelets, rings, necklaces, and cufflinks for both men and women — has attracted VIP customers like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Melanie Griffith.

A series of rings from Ramon. Clockwise from far left: A moonstone in white gold with tsavorite garnet melee; a peach moonstone ring in yellow gold with citrine melee; a brown moonstone ring in yellow gold with diamond melee; a peach moonstone ring in yellow gold with spinel melee; a brown moonstone ring in white gold with diamond melee.

For the 118-year-old jewelry firm Ramon, Barcelona has been more directly influential in its designs in the past, such as when it capitalized in the ’80s and ’90s on the mosaic-manic Gaudí boom. However, while today Luis Ramón, commercial representative and great-grandson of the founding Ramón, describes their jewelry as deriving primarily from international influences, the company still retains some very Catalan attributes, beginning with the openness and fashion sense that is characteristic of Barcelona.

“We could say that we’ve chosen our own path, the international outlook,” Ramón said. “We’re fortunate to be able to travel, interact with many people, and sell our pieces in the United States, Japan, Australia, and Central Europe. Understanding the latest styles is crucial, and we have a clear concept of these. We try to keep a step ahead when it comes to fashion.”

While fashion flair is important, Ramon also knows how to keep its feet on the ground when it comes to money sense. Catalan thrift is legendary in Spain, perhaps one of the keys to the region’s stable and growing economy.

“The two most important factors for us are design and price; they have to go together. We like to choose large, eye-catching colored stones because they look fabulous, but at the same time we choose more economical ones, with the exception of aquamarine, because we want to keep the prices from shooting up,” Ramón said.

Ramon uses gemstones like moonstones, rutilated and rose quartz, onyx, citrine, aquamarine, and occasionally, to a much lesser degree, sapphire, ruby, coral, and turquoise. The company’s designers, Alice Ramón and Esther López, cut the gemstones into either cabochons or faceted stones, depending on the final look they want to create. All designs use 18K gold.

Despite their thrust toward contemporary, international jewelry, Ramon has not allowed one of its more traditional facets to fade into the past. The company has retained one of the goldsmithing crafts for which Catalonia — specifically its Escola Massana “painters” — is famous: enameling. Their most Catalan product, according to Ramón, is embodied in their whimsical line of enameled animal-shaped jewelry, from pendants sporting open-mouthed leopards to ladybug rings.

A much newer jewelry designer, Núria Saloni, credits Barcelona for giving her freedom of expression: “Living in Barcelona means being a part of Mediterranean culture, which stands side by side with art, architecture, design, fashion, gastronomy, and a high level of coexistence and tolerance. We also enjoy the light and an excellent climate. All of these positive aspects help us to express ourselves freely, without neglecting our interest in European jewelry.”

Saloni, who founded a small workshop with the same name in 1998, makes handmade, Mediterranean-inspired contemporary jewelry with classic materials such as gold, silver, and gemstones and more current materials like glass, textiles, and vegetable fibers. Just as Barcelona has always welcomed the world beyond, Saloni displays her personal interest in the evolution of contemporary European jewelry through the expositions in which she’s been involved, such as Baselworld in Basel, Switzerland. She is also a member of two cultural associations: Orfebres FAD (Goldsmiths Promotion of the Decorative Arts), which promotes the international diffusion of the latest jewelry trends, and the Centre Català d’Artesanía ( Catalan Crafts Center), which promotes local craftsmanship.

“Participating in these groups allows me to have an ample vision of Europe’s current jewelry,” she said.

In her designs, Saloni likes to use natural, untreated colored gemstones such as Mandarin garnet, tourmaline, and fire opal.

“I look for the qualities that nature itself has endowed upon these colored gemstones in their formation, such as inclusions, transparency, and color. Once I select the stones, I think of how to integrate them with metal. I design subtle, elegant, light forms in which the gemstone color and my gold craftsmanship blend into an expression of my personality as a goldsmith,” she said.

Saloni added that she aims her all-occasion jewelry at today’s non-ostentatious woman. Her most recent collection, Plec & Pearl, incarnates this goal: a discreet, elegant gathering of punctuation-like earrings, rings, and pendants offsetting the dark green sheen of Tahitian pearls against a gold backdrop.

“Tahitian pearls attract me because of their extensive range of pearly hues,” she explained. “I seek to transmit luminosity and color through my work” — both attributes that she finds on Barcelona’s coast.

From ancient history to contemporary sophistication, Barcelona’s jewelry encompasses a wide range of styles, a reflection of the city itself. No matter which style a person chooses, she’ll be wearing Barcelona’s stamp of individualism and openness — a pulsating splash of color.

CAPTION FOR TOP PHOTO: Arqueojoya sets enamelled Roman fibulas, circa the second century B.C., into a modern set of cufflinks.

March/April 2006 • Style: A 24-Hour Muse - Barcelona Designers • Selling: Quiet on the Western Front - A Review of the Tucson Shows • Online Bonus: More on Barcelona • Online Bonus: More on Tucson • In This Issue