WHY BARCELONA
Barcelona is major economic center, an important cultural centre and has a rich cultural heritage. Particularly renowned are architectural works of Antoni Gaudi and LluĂs Domènech i Muntaner hat have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Barcelona has a long – standing mercantile tradition. Less well known is that it was one of the earliest regions in continental Europe to begin industrialization. But as in other modern cities, the manufacturing sector has long since been overtaken by the services sector.
Drawing upon its tradition of creative art and craftsmanship, Barcelona is nowadays also known for its award-winning industrial design. Barcelona also has several congress halls that host a quickly growing number of national and international events as iFEST’08.
Entertainment and performing Arts.
Barcelona has many venues for live music and theatre, including the world-renowned Gran Teatre del Liceu opera theatre, the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, the Teatre Lliure and the Palau de la MĂşsica Catalana concert hall. Barcelona also is home to the SĂłnar Music Festival which takes place around June every year.
Museums
Barcelona houses a great number of museums, which cover different areas and eras. The National Museum of Art of Catalonia possesses a well-known collection of Romanesque art while the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art focuses on post 1945 Catalan and Spanish Art. The FundaciĂł Joan MirĂł, Picasso Museum and FundaciĂł Antoni TĂ pies hold important collections of theses world-renowned artists.
Several museums cover the fields of history and archeology, like the City History Museum, the Museum of the History of Catalonia, the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia and the private-owned Egyptian Museum.
Architecture
The Barri Gòtic (“Gothic Quarter” in Catalan) is the centre of the old city of Barcelona. Many of the buildings date from medieval times, some from as a far back as the Roman settlement of Barcelona. Catalan modernisme architecture (often known as Art Nouveau in the rest of Europe), developed between 1885 and 1950 and left an important legacy in Barcelona. A great number of these buildings are World Heritage Sites. Especially remarkable is the work of architect Antoni GaudĂ, which can be seen thorough the city. His best known work is the immense but still unfinished church of Sagrada Familia, which has been under construction since 1882, and is still financed by orivate donations. It’s completion is planned for 2026.
Barcelona won the 1999 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for its architecture, the first time.
WHAT TO VISIT IN BARCELONA
La Rambla
Until 1860, the year in which Barcelona finally broke out from behind its city walls, the city extended no further than the hexagon of the 15th century enclosure (the present-day Casc Antic). Until the beginning of the 18th century La Rambla consisted merely of a path beside a stream running between convents on one side and the old city walls on the other. It was in 1704 that the first houses were put up at the Boqueria on the site of the old city walls and the first trees were planted. In 1775 the old city walls by the Drassanes medieval shipyards were demolished, and toward the end of the 18th century the street began to be systematically developed: la Rambla became a kind of tree-lined avenue. La Rambla is more than a street, is also an experience.
The Gothic Quarter (Barri Gòtic)
The small squares and streets The most charming corners of our city are its small squares, very often hidden away, like the Placeta de Sant Just or that of Sant Felip Neri, and alleys that still conserve the charm of ancient times, such as Carrer del Call, Carrer de ParadĂs and others no less representative of Roman and medieval Barcelona, or streets like Montcada, which was one of the city’s noble arteries during the 14th century. To explore these places, we have to enter into the very heart of the old city.
The Cathedral
The most distant origins of the Cathedral of Barcelona correspond to a basilica with three naves which was destroyed by Al -Mansur (925). The remains of this basilica can be seen in the City History Museum . Around 1046, a new cathedral was commenced at the initiative of Bishop Guislabert. We have few references to this building: it is believed to have occupied a part of the Gothic building, but some of its Romanesque elements remain.
The present-day basilica construction began in 1298, during the reign of King Jaume II, known as “the Just”. The work on the present-day façade of the Cathedral remained unfinished until the end of the last century, being completed by the architects Josep Oriol Mestres and August Font i Carreras, taking inspiration from a drawing from the 15th century by Mestre CarlĂ.
La plaça del Rei
The Plaça del Rei (the ‘King’s Square’) is the most noble urban space of old Barcelona.
To the right is the Palatine Chapel or Chapel of Saint Agatha and to the left the Lieutenant’s Palace where, during some time, the Archive of the Aragon Crown was housed. Now this Archive is located at AlmogĂ vers street.
To the right, at the corner of Carrer del Veguer, is the Clariana-PadellĂ s house, which now houses the City History Museum.
The street of Sant Felip Neri
The street of Sant Felip Neri and the square of the same name form a corner with a very particular atmosphere. The first time you walk down this Roman alleyway, it’s a surprise to find that it ends in this small, quiet square.
The ’square’, originally part of the cemetery called “de MontjuĂŻc del Bisbe” (”the Bishop’s Jewish Hill”), has a fountain in the middle which is the delight of everyone who contemplates the whole formed by the street, the square and the church bearing the name of the saint, and two Renaissance buildings: the Coppersmiths’ Guildhouse and the Shoemakers’ Guildhouse.
Placetes del Pi and de Sant Josep Oriol
At the end of Carrer de Petritxol we find two small adjoining squares, first the Plaça del Pi, and alongside it the Plaça de Sant Josep Oriol. The Plaça del Pi has for some years had a pine tree like the one that existed there when the square was first opened up, and which gave it its name. Opposite the 15th-century Gothic church Santa Maria del Pi there are two interesting buildings, the Shopkeepers’ Guild (1685) and the house of the Congregation of the Holy Blood. Every weekend the Plaça de Sant Josep Oriol is filled with a colourful painters’ market.
Carrer de Petritxol
Go down the Rambla turn left into Carrer de la Portaferrissa, and the second turning on the right is Carrer de Petritxol. This is a quiet, narrow street, enlivened by the small art galleries, long-established shops and typical ‘chocolate rooms’ and pastry shops, some renovated, where locals and visitors can enjoy delicious Catalan specialities.
La Plaça Reial
Just off the left-hand side of the Rambla , as you go down towards the harbour, after Carrer Ferran, there opens up the plaça Reial, one of the spaces with most tradition and interest in the city, as a result of its configuration and the life that goes on there. Like many of the public spaces of the old town, the Plaça Reial occupies the site of a monastery, in this case of the Capuchin order. It was laid out in 1848.
This square, remodelled on several occasions, is now the meeting-point for a very mixed public, which finds here a space to sit and have a drink in the open air at the terraces cafĂ©s situated under the welcoming porches that so characterise it. In the centre of the square there is the ‘Three Graces’ fountain, with two lanterns designed by the young Antoni GaudĂ.
Borne
In the middle Ages this was the area for Barcelona’s festivals, processions, tournaments, carnivals and the burning of heretics by the Inquisition. The district is full of great bars, and has an ever-expanding number of restaurants. Since the 1980s it has also been a focal point of the city´s alternative art scene. For this reason, an interesting selection of independent textile and craft workshops can be found here. Perhaps the most important Catalan Gothic buildings can be found in this district; the magnificent church of Santa Maria del Mar.
L’Eixample
This district was designed by the architect Cerdá, and was built to connect the old Barcelona (Ciutat Vella) with the surrounding villages. All of the streets here cross in a rectangular style, which is a very unusual design in European town planning. The whole district is built in a Modernist fashion. The most impressive monuments in this district are: some works of AntonĂ GaudĂ, Casa de los Punxes, Plaça de Catalunya, and Paseig de GraciĂ .
Passeig de GrĂ cia and Rambla Catalunya
Passeig de Grà cia and Avinguda Diagonal are two arteries that have concentrated a great deal of traffic and commerce, and at the same time they are residential streets and the site of many restaurants, cinemas, commercial galleries, discotheques, cafés, and so on.This thirty-metre-wide avenue that begins at the Diagonal and ends at Plaça de Catalunya has conserved the charm of its central tree-lined promenade. Passeig de Grà cia was, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the residential centre of the highest ranks of the Catalan bourgeoisie.
This boulevard follows the straight line traced by the old road from Barcelona to the village of GrĂ cia, which has long been absorbed by the expansion of the city. In 1827 this road was converted into a broad, tree-lined avenue.
The modernist movement left ample testimony in Passeig de GrĂ cia, in buildings such as the neo-Gothic Amatller house , with ornamentation of polychrome tiles, by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, followed by the BatllĂł house , with a mosaic façade and a tiled roof, by Antoni GaudĂ. A little further up the street, on the right-hand side on the corner with Carrer Provença, there is the MilĂ house ‘La Pedrera’, designed by GaudĂ shortly after the termination of the BatllĂł house.The originality of La Pedrera is not limited to the sculptural forms of its façade, but also extends to the interior of the building.
The Avinguda Diagonal
The Avinguda Diagonal cuts through the grid pattern of the CerdĂ Plan and crosses the city at an angle from east to west, stretching from the seafront to the very edge of the city. This characteristic thoroughfare conserves buildings of great historical and architectural value and representative monuments of the history of Catalonia.
An extensive section of this avenue is dedicated to commerce: large stores, shopping centers and famous-name establishments. It is also an area of restaurants and cafeterias, and of the offices of large official bodies and major corporations. The Diagonal, together with Passeig de GrĂ cia, is one of the most prestigious streets in Barcelona.
This area is known as the University Zone in which we can visit the Royal Palace of Pedralbes, with its large gardens open to the public.
La Plaça de Catalunya
The Plaça de Catalunya is the centre of the city; it is the confluence of streets as important as Passeig de GrĂ cia, Rambla Catalunya, the Rambla and Portal de l’Ă€ngel, all filled with multitudes of local people and visitors. This square has shops, cafeterias and banks, and is also a major centre of urban communications.
The Temple of the Holy Family (La Sagrada FamĂlia)
Situated to one side of the Plaça de la Sagrada FamĂlia, between the streets Marina, Provença, Sardenya and Mallorca, stands the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada FamĂlia, which was initially a neo-Gothic project designed by the architect Francesc de Paula del Villar. GaudĂ was commissioned to continue the work in 1891, and replaced the existing project with a much more ambitious one which resulted in the enormous present-day structure. Sagrada Familia aspires to be a symbolic construction.
El parc GĂĽell
The Parc GĂĽell is situated on the Carmel hill, which separates the district of GrĂ cia from that of Horta. The financier Eusebi GĂĽell decided to construct a garden city and commissioned the project to GaudĂ. Only two houses came to be built within the enclosure of the Park, which was conserved as such and which is now a municipal garden. The whole of the urban development part was realised between the years 1900 and 1914.
El Palau de la MĂşsica Catalana
On the corner of Carrer Amadeu Vives stands this work by the architect Domènech i Montaner, a follower of GaudĂ. The Palau de la MĂşsica dates from 1908, and its interior is the most important testimony of the modernist style.
Olympic Village
A walk around the Olympic Village enables us to discover this new neighbourhood of Barcelona, an extremely important part of the works of the Olympic programme. We begin our walk at the Plaça dels Voluntaris, in front of which there stand the two towers which, with their original architecture, give the neighbourhood its own character. One of the towers is the Hotel Arts, the work of the architects Bruce Graham and Frank O. Gehry, with 44 floors; the other is the Mapfre Tower, designed by Iñigo Ortiz and Enrique de León, an office building.
Beaches
With the opening of the city to the sea, a project first undertaken in the 1980s, the redeveloped seafront, from the Moll de la Fusta and the area around the Palau de Mar to the Rambla de Mar and the Olympic Port area, has become one of Barcelona’s most popular spaces for recreation and leisure. In addition, the beaches of Sant SebastiĂ , La Barceloneta, Nova IcĂ ria, Bogatell, Mar Bella and Nova Mar Bella, stretching more than four kilometres overall, receive annually nearly seven million visitors, and have all the facilities and services necessary for these people to enjoy a pleasant and safe day at the beach.
