Cartographies of disappearance: Thresholds in Barcelona’s metro

This article proposes an analysis of Barcelona’s metro system following David Pike’s threshold concept, key to the topography of the ‘vertical city’. This will be done through reading maps and literary texts that illustrate three closely related issues: an interpretation of Barcelona’s metro network and its meanings; the disappearance of some metro stations and underground spaces, such as hidden connecting corridors, which create a shallow presence of the past into the present, examples of urban spaces that are buried and forgotten; and subway life as portrayed in some literary texts with particular emphasis on the use of mythology.