Zoom in to the origin of the Eixample in Barcelona
Although it's hard to imagine, there was a time when the current Eixample district was a barren land with only fields and crops separating the walled city of Barcelona from small towns like Gràcia, Horta, Sarrià, Sant Andreu, Sant Martí de Provençals, or Sants. We are in the 19th century, when a municipal ordinance, based on a military strategy, prohibited the construction of any type of building within a distance of 150 Castilian rods (the range of a cannonball) from the walls. This allowed for control over any assault on the city, leaving any invading army exposed.
This measure and the strong territorial limitation of the city (the sea on one side and the walls on the other) meant that Barcelona could only grow upwards, building floors on top of already existing ones. There was a lack of space and infrastructure, and the sanitary conditions were dire. In 1818, Barcelona had a population of 83,000 people. By 1850, this number had risen to 187,000. The city was collapsing within its walls while the outskirts were filled with deserted fields. Faced with this situation, there was a growing public outcry for immediate solutions.
Este movimiento cristalizó en 1841 en un manifiesto llamado ¡Abajo las murallas! Memoria acerca de las ventajas que reportaría a Barcelona, y especialmente a su industria, de la demolición de las murallas que circuyen la ciudad. En élse detallaban las mejoras que reportaría a la ciudad poder crecer a lo ancho, y no a lo alto. Aún así, pasarían 13 años hasta que el gobierno aprobó el derribo de las murallas tras una epidemia de cólera que arrasó la ciudad en 1854. Con ese decreto se convocaba también un concurso municipal de proyectos para urbanizar todo el territorio que se extendía desde el río Llobregat hasta el río Besòs. El ganador de ese concurso fue el arquitecto Antonio Rovira Trias, aunque desde el gobierno central se impuso otro proyecto presentado por el ingeniero Ildefons Cerdà, que diseñó un plan en el que primaba una intención higienista y que se adaptaba a un orden geométrico que permitía un crecimiento casi ilimitado.
Cerdà designed an urban plan with straight, parallel, and perpendicular streets, forming three-dimensional grid patterns known as blocks. One of the unique features was the presentation of corners at a 45º angle to ensure better visibility. With this project, Barcelona adapts to the future and widens its streets, making them suitable for the use of public (tram, train) or private (carts and cars) transportation. The Cerdà Plan meant the expansion of Barcelona to include the old independent towns on its outskirts. Over the years, the so-called “Barcelona plan” ended up creating the current neighborhoods of l’Esquerra de l’Eixample (Antiga and Nova), la Dreta, Sant Antoni, Sagrada Familia, and Fort Pienc.
The development of the Eixample coincided with the emergence of a movement called Modernism, which encompassed different disciplines, and in our city crystallized in the field of architecture thanks to the patronage of the Catalan industrial bourgeoisie who found in the new trend a way to satisfy their desires for modernization and to express their wealth and distinction. This eagerness to demonstrate social status extended over five decades and led to the proliferation of surprising and original buildings designed by young architects of the time: Gaudí, Domènech i Montaner, Puig i Cadafalch, Enric Sagnier, Adolf Ruiz Casamitjana... Between 1880 and 1930, approximately, facades full of color, mosaics, sgraffito, glazed galleries, sinuous and transgressive shapes and reliefs for the time, iron balconies... It was a very fertile period in which great beauty was bestowed not only on the new neighborhood but also on other areas of the city, such as the La Rotonda building.
La mayor concentración de esas edificaciones se encuentran en el 'Quadrat d'Or' (Milla de Oro), sin duda la zona más privilegiada del Eixample y que está delimitada por la calle Aribau y el paseo de Sant Joan, las rondas de Sant Pere, Sant Pau y Universitat y la avenida Diagonal. El Quadrat d'Or está considerado como un museo al aire libre con obras de Antoni Gaudí, Domènech i Montaner y de Puig i Cadafalch, entre otros. Un paseo por el Quadrat d’Or nos permite admirar una inmensa cantidad de joyas arquitectónicas, fruto del desplazamiento de la residencia burguesa desde la ciudad antigua hasta el Eixample central, hacia el 1900. Entre los edificios más destacados se encuentran: la Casa Terrades o Casa de les Punxes, la Casa Lleó i Morera, la Casa Amatller, la Casa Batlló, La Pedrera o Casa Milà, la Casa Calvet... entre otras.
If the so-called Quadrat d’Or is exclusive, even more so is the so-called Manzana de la Discordia, a group of houses located on Paseo de Gracia, between Aragón and Consejo de Ciento streets. In this block of the Eixample district, we find the three most important architects of Modernism represented: the Casa Lleó i Morera (1902-1906) by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the Casa Amatller (1898-1900) by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, and the Casa Batlló (1904-1906) by Antoni Gaudí. The name Manzana de la Discordia arose among the people of Barcelona, drawing a parallel with an episode from Greek mythology that tells us about the wedding of Thetis (sea divinity) and Peleus (father of Achilles), to which all the gods were invited except for Eris, the Goddess of Discord. Very angry, she appeared at the banquet leaving on the gift table a golden apple with the inscription: Kallisti (for the fairest). The apple was claimed by Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. To avoid arguments, Zeus proposed that a judgment be held, presided over by Paris, prince of Troy, to decide to whom the golden apple would belong. The three goddesses tried to convince him, and finally Paris gave the golden apple to Aphrodite, who had promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, wife of the king of Sparta. And this event led to the Trojan War.
Hence, the people of Barcelona, who also could not agree on which building was the most beautiful, nicknamed the place in that way. Which of the three modernist houses corresponds to the block of gold? Although at Núñez i Navarro, for obvious reasons, we defend the beauty and uniqueness of the Lleó i Morera house, a historic space rehabilitated as an office building, you will not find the answer to this dilemma in this post. Fortunately, that debate seems to be over, and the prevailing opinion today is that all three buildings are the living history of our city, born of a time, a context, and a space, the Eixample, of unique beauty. Let's enjoy it!
