Urban planning of Barcelona

It is the seat of the autonomous government and the Parliament of Catalonia, as well as the provincial deputation, the archbishopric and the IV Military Region, and has a port, an airport and an important network of railroads and roads.

This division was made by establishing a grid with the Plaça del Blat as the geometric center, with the separation of the northern and southern quarters set in the ancient Roman cardo maximus.

[31] The main reason for the choice of a small promontory near the coast to build the city was its natural harbor, although the alluvium of the torrents and the sedimentation of sand from the coastal currents would make the port's draught difficult.

[34] The Romans were great experts in architecture and civil engineering, and provided the territory with roads, bridges, aqueducts and an urban design with a rational layout and basic services, such as sewerage.

[41] At this time Barcelona was constituted as a county and later became part of the Crown of Aragon and the political and economic center of the Principality of Catalonia, becoming an important maritime and commercial axis of the Mediterranean Sea.

[53] Another of the few urban planning processes of this period was the opening of the Plaça Nova, next to the Episcopal Palace and near the cathedral of Barcelona, carried out in 1355 thanks to the demolition of several houses and the reuse of the Bishop's orchard.

Located on a small peninsula of land reclaimed from the sea, its layout was designed by the engineer Pedro Martín Cermeño, with a grid of orthogonal streets and blocks of houses of elongated plan, which is a clear example of academic baroque urbanism.

[78] Industrialization brought about important changes in the urban planning of the city, due to the new needs of the economic sectors of the capitalist system, which required a strong concentration of labor and auxiliary services.

[80] In 1856 the first Ordenanzas Municipales (Municipal Ordinances) were approved, which brought together and expanded previous provisions, within an urban code that contemplated for the first time all aspects of civic and institutional relations in the city.

[101] Cerdá accompanied his project with several memoirs and statistical studies in which he showed his urbanistic theory, developed in three main points: hygienism, based on his Monografía estadística de la clase obrera (Statistical monograph of the working class), where he criticizes the living conditions within the walled city in force until then —life expectancy was 38.3 years for the rich and 19.7 for the poor—, against which he proposes improvements in urban orientation according to factors such as climatology, as well as in the constructive elements; circulation, with a view to making public roads compatible between pedestrians and vehicular traffic, which led him to regulate the distribution of streets and to establish chamfers on all sides of the blocks to facilitate crossings; and the multipurpose design, with an urban layout that would be extrapolated both to spaces to be built and to those already existing, integrating the notions of "widening" and "reform", and that would give a hygienic and functional city, although this part of his project would not be carried out.

[107] During these years, street furniture also grew, especially since the appointment in 1871 of Antoni Rovira i Trias as head of Buildings and Ornamentation of the City Council, as well as his successor, Pere Falqués, who made a special effort to combine aesthetics and functionality for this type of urban adornments.

The increase of elements such as lampposts, fountains, benches, kiosks, railings, planters, mailboxes and other public services was favored by the rise of the iron industry, which allowed their mass production and resulted in greater strength and durability.

[111] The remodeling project of the Citadel Park was commissioned to Josep Fontserè in 1872, who designed extensive gardens for the recreation of the citizens, and together with the green area he planned a central square and a ring road, as well as a monumental fountain and various ornamental elements, two lakes and a wooded area, as well as various auxiliary buildings and infrastructures, such as the Born market, a water reservoir —currently the library of the Pompeu Fabra University—, a slaughterhouse, an iron bridge over the railroad lines and several service sheds.

[122] With the turn of the century, a new political scenario opened up, marked by the loss of the colonies in America and Asia and the rise of the Regionalist League, led by politicians such as Francesc Cambó, Enric Prat de la Riba and the architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who expressed their desire to place Barcelona on the international front line, at the level of cities such as Paris, New York, Berlin or Vienna.

[136] During the first decade of the century, public urinals called vespasianas were installed, made of metal with a circular body with a capacity for six people, above which rose a hexagonal section for advertising, topped by a little dome.

For this event the entire area of the Plaça dEspanya, the avenue of Queen Maria Christina and the mountain of Montjuïc was urbanized, and the pavilions that currently house the Barcelona Fair were built.

[155] However, one of its worst effects was the rise of shantyism, since many of the immigrants who could not have access to housing resorted to self-construction, with precarious buildings made of scrap materials (cane, wood, brass), in single spaces for the family of about 25 m².

[157] The arrival of the Second Republic and the grant of self-government to Catalonia favored the creation of various urban development projects in a city that by 1930 had reached one million inhabitants and was deficient in infrastructure, housing, transport and facilities such as schools and hospitals.

[80] Thus arose the Regional Plan of 1953, developed by Josep Soteras, an attempt to integrate the city with neighboring municipalities in order to meet the strong demand for housing in the years of massive immigration, while trying to curb real estate speculation and improve the urban environment.

[179] The growth of the population and the appearance of new neighborhoods implied the construction of new markets for the supply of basic products: Sagrada Família (1944), Carme (1950), Sagrera (1950), Horta (1951), Vallvidrera (1953), Estrella (1954), Guinardó (1954), Tres Torres (1958), Bon Pastor (1960), Montserrat (1960), Mercè (1961), Corts (1961), Guineueta (1965), Ciutat Meridiana (1966), Felip II (1966), Sant Martí (1966), Besòs (1968), Sant Gervasi (1968), Carmel (1969), Vall d'Hebrón (1969), Port (1973), Provençals (1974), Lesseps (1974), Trinitat (1977) and Canyelles (1987).

[183] In 1952 Barcelona hosted the XXXV International Eucharistic Congress, which allowed the development of a new neighborhood known as Congreso (Congrés), with a housing complex designed by Josep Soteras, Carles Marquès and Antoni Pineda.

The idea arose in 1900, due to the loss of the colonial market in Cuba, promoted by Fomento del Trabajo Nacional (National Labor Development) an entity that commissioned the project to Guillem Graell.

However, bureaucratic obstacles, the outline of several projects that did not come to fruition and the Civil War delayed its construction until the 1960s, although then simply as an industrial estate, abandoning the concept of a zona franca.

Examples of this were the opposition to the new layout of Lesseps square caused by the opening of the First Ring Road (Ronda del Mig), or the reaction against the Partial Plan of Vallbona, Torre Baró and Trinitat, organized by a neighborhood association called Nueve Barrios (Nine Neighbourhoods) which later gave rise to the name of that new district of the city.

[199] His work also included the Mirador del Alcalde and Joan Maragall gardens on Montjuic, located around the Albéniz Palacete; and, in the rest of Barcelona, the Putget, Guineueta and Villa Amelia parks.

Three general lines of action were outlined: one of small-scale urban rehabilitation, such as the opening of streets and squares, the creation of parks and gardens and the restoration of buildings and artistic monuments; another of urban restructuring, focused on aspects such as road reorganization (ring roads), new central areas and land requalification; and another of morphological reorganization, which took the form of the current administrative division of the city into ten districts (1984), most of which coincided with the former municipalities attached to Barcelona.

[211] Among the sectoral plans developed during these years it is worth mentioning: those of Ciutat Vella, especially in the Raval, Santa Caterina and Barceloneta; that of Carmel; that of Gràcia, where several squares were urbanized (Sol, Virreina, Trilla, Diamant and Raspall, 1982-1985); and those of Sarrià, Sant Andreu and Poblenou.

The general planning was carried out between 1989 and 1992 by Josep Acebillo, technical director of the Municipal Institute for Urban Development, and Alfred Morales, coordinator of transport and circulation of the Barcelona City Council.

[239] Communications have improved with the arrival of the high-speed train, which links the Catalan capital with Madrid and Paris; the Mediterranean Corridor, a strategic transport line between the peninsula and the European continent, is in the project.

A clear example is the neighborhood of El Carmel, where in 2005 there was also a subsidence due to the extension works of line 5 of the subway, which caused the demolition of several buildings and the relocation of hundreds of neighbors.