Barcelona
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Neighbourhoods at a Glance
La Rambla
Museu Picasso
La Sagrada Família
The Genius of Gaudí
Barcelona
Pop 1,621,090
Why Go?
Barcelona is a mix of sunny Mediterranean charm and European urban style, where dedicated hedonists and culture vultures feel equally at home. From Gothic to Gaudí, the city bursts with art and architecture; Catalan cooking is among the country’s best; summer sun seekers fill the beaches in and beyond the city; and the bars and clubs heave year round.
From its origins as a middle-ranking Roman town, of which vestiges can be seen today, Barcelona became a medieval trade juggernaut. Its old centre holds one of the greatest concentrations of Gothic architecture in Europe. Beyond this are some of the world’s more bizarre buildings, surreal spectacles capped by Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família. Barcelona has been breaking ground in art, architecture and style since the late 19th century, from Picasso and Miró to today’s modern wonders.
When to Go
- May Plaça del Fòrum rocks during Primavera Sound, four days of pop and rock concerts.
- Jun Sónar, Europe’s biggest celebration of electronic music, is a long weekend of concerts.
- Sep Festes de la Mercè is Barcelona’s end-of-summer finale and biggest party.
Barcelona Highlights
1 La Sagrada Família Marvelling at Antoni Gaudí’s still unfolding Modernista masterpiece.
2 Barri Gòtic Strolling the narrow medieval lanes of Barcelona’s enchanting old quarter.
3 Palau de la Música Catalana Seeing a concert in one of Europe’s most extravagant concert halls.
4 Camp Nou Joining the riotous carnival at an FC Barça match in this hallowed stadium.
5 Park Güell Drinking in the views from Gaudí’s fabulous creation.
6 L’Eixample Dining and drinking amid the architecturally rich streetscape.
7 Museu Picasso Discovering Pablo’s early masterpieces inside this atmospheric museum.
8 La Barceloneta Feasting on fresh seafood, followed by a stroll along the boardwalk.
9 El Raval Taking in the nightlife of this bohemian neighbourhood.
a Montjuïc Exploring this hilltop bastion of Romanesque art, a brooding fort, Miró and beautiful gardens.
History
It is thought that Barcelona may have been founded by the Carthaginians in about 230 BC, taking the surname of Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal’s father. Roman Barcelona (known as Barcino) covered an area within today’s Barri Gòtic and was overshadowed by Tarraco (Tarragona), 90km to the southwest. In the wake of Muslim occupation and then Frankish domination, Guifré el Pilós (Wilfred the Hairy) founded the house of the Comtes de Barcelona (Counts of Barcelona) in AD 878. In 1137 Count Ramon Berenguer IV married Petronilla, heiress of Aragón, creating a joint state and setting the scene for Catalonia’s golden age. Jaume I (1213–76) wrenched the Balearic Islands and Valencia from the Muslims in the 1230s to ’40s. Jaume I’s son Pere II followed with Sicily in 1282. The accession of the Aragonese noble Fernando to the throne in 1479 augured ill for Barcelona, and his marriage to Queen Isabel of Castilla more still. Catalonia effectively became a subordinate part of the Castilian state. After the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13), Barcelona fell to the Bourbon king, Felipe V, in September 1714.
Modernisme, Anarchy & Civil War
The 19th century brought economic resurgence. Wine, cotton, cork and iron industries developed, as did urban working-class poverty and unrest. To ease the crush, Barcelona’s medieval walls were demolished in 1854, and in 1869 work began on L’Eixample, an extension of the city beyond Plaça de Catalunya. The flourishing bourgeoisie paid for lavish buildings, many of them in the eclectic Modernisme style, whose leading exponent was Antoni Gaudí. In 1937, a year into the Spanish Civil War, the Catalan communist party (PSUC; Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya) took control of the city after fratricidal street battles against anarchists and Trotskyists. George Orwell recorded the events in his classic Homage to Catalonia. Barcelona fell to Franco in 1939 and there followed a long period of repression.
From Franco to the Present
Under Franco, Barcelona received a flood of immigrants, chiefly from Andalucía. Some 750,000 people came to Barcelona in the ’50s and ’60s, and almost as many to the rest of Catalonia. Many lived in appalling conditions. Three years after Franco’s death in 1975, a new Spanish constitution created the autonomous community of Catalonia (Catalunya in Catalan; Cataluña in Castilian), with Barcelona as its capital. The 1992 Olympic Games put Barcelona on the map. Under the visionary leadership of popular Catalan Socialist mayor Pasqual Maragall, a burst of public works brought new life to Montjuïc and the once shabby waterfront.
Flush with success after the Olympics makeover, Barcelona continued the revitalisation of formerly run-down neighbourhoods. El Raval, still dodgy in parts, has seen a host of building projects, from the opening of Richard Meier’s cutting-edge MACBA in 1995 to the Filmoteca de Catalunya in 2012.
Further west, the once derelict industrial district of Poble Nou has been reinvented as 22@ (pronounced ‘vint-i-dos arroba’), a 200-hectare zone that’s a centre for technology and design. Innovative companies and futuristic architecture (such as the Museu del Disseny) continue to reshape the urban landscape of this ever-evolving city.
Separatism on the Rise
The economic crisis that erupted in 2007 has largely shifted the conversation to the realm of economic recovery. Soaring unemployment and painful austerity measures – not to mention Catalonia’s heavy tax burden – have led to anger and resentment towards Madrid, and fuelled the drive towards independence.
The fervour to secede has only grown in the last few years. Recent polls and the regional elections held at the end of 2017 indicate that about half of Catalans support the region becoming a new European state. At the time of writing, however, Madrid had imposed direct rule as a result of Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont’s declaration of independence, which Spanish judges ruled was in clear violation of the Spanish constitution, and – at the beginning of 2018 – several Catalan politicians found themselves in jail on charges of sedition and rebellion.