•

•
• The city of Barcino is established in the
second century B.C. by the Roman Empire.

• The area has a strategic location, situated

between two rivers and protected by hills.

• Barcino is part of the Roman Network of Cities.

• Two streets spread out in the form of a

cross, the cardus and thedecumanus, leading
to the four entrance gates.

• In the 3rd Century B.C. it becomes the most

important outpost (military camp) in the
Mediterranean center.

• A city wall is built in the 4th century AD to

protect the Romans against invaders.

• This castrum (plot of land, used as a fortified

military camp) becomes the nucleus for the
urban growth of the city of Barcelona.
 The area stretching between the Besòs and Llobregat river deltas, the site of today's Barcelona, was already populated in

prehistoric times. Shortly before the start of the current era, it housed various settlementsof native peoples, mainly Laietani. According to legend

there was also a Jewish colony at the top of Montjuïc, which might explain where its name ("Jewish Mountain") comes from.

When the Romans arrived, between 15 and 13 BC, they were looking for the best place to found a colony between the prosperous

Emporiae (Empúries), on the coast to the north, and Tàrraco (Tarragona), to the south. The spot they chose was the top of Mount Taber, a small hill

facing the sea and looking over the plain, where Plaça de Sant Jaume is today. They had little difficulty in gaining control over the neighbouring

settlements. The colony, called Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino, grew rapidly. A wall was built around it between the 1st and 2nd centuries,

which was reinforced between the 3rd and 4th centuries and marked the perimeter that remained the same until the Middle Ages. It also kept the

structure of a Roman city, with a forum at the centre from which two streets spread out in the form of a cross, the cardus and thedecumanus,

leading to the four entrance gates.

It is still possible to trace this structure today: Carrer Llibreteria, which starts in Plaça de l’Àngel where the Porta Sinistra, one of the

gates in the wall, used to be, is the old cardus that crossed the city from north to south to the Porta Dextra, at the end of today's Carrer del Call; Plaça

Sant Jaume, in the centre, extends a little to the south-east of where the Forum was in those days; and three modern streets, Bisbe, Ciutat and

Regomir, follow the route of the old decumanus from the Porta Praetoriain the west to the Porta Decumana or Porta del Mar, in the east.

The presence of large domus in the city, houses with gardens and rich ornamental decoration, is proof of the presence of important property-owning

families. And it was probably thanks to these families that the small Bàrcino gradually grew in size and significance. By the start of the 5th

century money was already being minted in the city, establishing the first link with the imperial elite and placing it among the powerful cities.
In fact, it was particularly in the 5th century, at the end of the Roman Empire, that the city became more important. Between 410 and 415,

the Visigothic king Ataulf installed his wife Gala Placidia here, turning Bàrcino into an imperial seat for a brief period, until Ataulf was assassinated in

the city and the court moved to Aquitania in Gaul, present-day Aquitaine, France. Despite this, Bàrcino's close relationship with the Visigothic kings

continued until the 8th century.

• The medieval times are considered
Barcelona’s strongest point in history.

• While the city expands, Barcelona’s wealth

increases as trade improves, especially in
Northern Africa.

• Barcelona begins to develop its own form of

government away from the Roman Empire.

• The city’s growth and development is so big

that new city walls are constructed.
 In the Middle Ages, Barcelona became the Ciutat Comtal (Count’s City) and its political importance increased. It became the

seat of the main political institutions in Old Catalonia and that favoured the development of trade which, in turn, led to the city’s growth and

expansion, and the construction of some magnificent Gothic-style buildings.

The Middle Ages

At the start of the 9th century, following the Muslim invasion and the expulsion of the Arabs from the Iberian peninsula by
the Franks, the territory of what later became Catalonia was organised into comtats, counties ruled by counts based on the territorial divisions
of the Visigothic period. The Comtat de Barcelona (County of Barcelona) was originally established by the ruler of the Carolingian Empire but
the break-up of the empire saw Guifré el Pelós (Wilfred the Hairy) set up the Casal de Barcelona (House of Barcelona) as Barcelona was the
main county in the Catalan lands and dominated the others.

In the 11th century, Count Ramon Berenguer I proclaimed the Usatges de Barcelona. These rules and customs formed the
first Catalan legislative text and sought to solve the legal problems created by the new feudal society. They applied to all of Old Catalonia. With
the unification of the various counties in the Catalan lands under the jurisdiction of King Alphonse l in the 12th century, the Principality of
Catalonia took shape and, from that moment, the sovereign of the Principality also held the title of Count of Barcelona.

Under the protection of the counts, an agricultural and craft-based Barcelona increased its political and commercial
importance and grew rapidly. The ancient Roman walls were now too small, so compact but unprotected urban centres developed round new
parishes outside the walls.
Consell de Cent and the Corts Catalanes

During the reign of Jaume I, the Conqueror (1218-76), King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, government of Barcelona, the Ciutat
Comtal, passed into the hands of the Consell de Cent (Council of One Hundred), a new form of municipal government comprising 128 members, that
lasted until 1714.

The increase in trade brought lots of merchants to Barcelona and led to the establishment of the Consolat del Mar in 1258. This
Maritime Consulate regulated maritime trade and was responsible for the port regulations.

In 1283, during the reign of Pere el Gran (Peter the Great), the first Corts Catalanes were held in Barcelona with the aim of drafting a
Catalan constitution or statute, and this gave rise to the Generalitat of Catalonia, the main Catalan governmental institution which had its seat in the
Palau de la Generalitat in Plaça Sant Jaume from the beginning of the 15th century.

Political and commercial expansion led to a glorious age that favoured urban development. First, a new wall was built in the 13th
century which expanded the city by drawing the Ribera and Sant Pere de les Puel·les neighbourhoods into it on one side, and reaching the Rambla on the
other. Then, a century later, work started on expanding the walled area further to include the Raval neighbourhood and stretching as far as today's
Avinguda Paral·lel, finally ending next to the sea. A fragment of the wall built in this final expansion has been preserved along with one of the entrance
gates, the Portal de Santa Madrona, at the end of today's Paral·lel and next to the Reials Drassanes, the Royal Shipyards, also constructed at this time
and housed in a building that symbolises medieval Barcelona's naval power. Work also started on building a port because, despite the busy maritime
activity, the city did not have one.

The Romanesque churches were rebuilt and new buildings went up in the splendid Gothic style that are still preserved today, for
example, the Shipyards and the Llotja exchange, religious buildings such as the Cathedral and Santa Maria del Mar church, a perfect example of Catalan
Gothic, palaces, mansions, convents, monasteries and many others. A construction fever that left behind a magnificent heritage all round the city.
• Beginning with the construction of the castle
on Montjuic, Barcelona considers this time to
be its repression.

• Starting with the Guerra del Segadors, a

rebellion war that resulted when Cataluna was
forced to fight against the French, the city itself
was starved till they surrendered.

• When Felipe V became king, the walls of the

Citadel were constructed, bringing more
government control into the City.

• In the mid 18th century, Barcelona experienced

great development in the city plan, when
Barceloneta and Las Ramblas were designed
and built.

• Around the beginning of the 19th century,

Barcelona had more urban development. In
1860, the first stone of the Cerda grid was
placed, marking the beginning of Barcelona’s
most expansive project yet.
Resurgence in a time of war

At the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, Barcelona continued to be a dynamic city linked to other parts of the
world but it suffered some long sieges during some protracted wars that left deep scars. However, thanks to the fighting spirit of its inhabitants, it
enjoyed a resurgence at the end of the 18th century as the driving force of an industrial development that took root in the course of the 19th century.

A new model

The medieval Barcelona of merchants and craftsmen had established itself as a major maritime power. But when the Crown of Aragon
became part of the new Spanish monarchy, and the conquest of America pushed trade towards the Atlantic, the city's maritime activity was weakened.
The monarchy moved to Castile, while Barcelona remained in the hands of a viceroy.

Tensions with the central power were common throughout the 16th and 17th centuries and, as a result of the war Philip lV was
waging against France, which imposed a big economic burden on the counties in the Principality of Catalonia, in 1640 the Catalan people revolted. It
took place on the Feast of Corpus Christi and has gone down in history as Bloody Corpus, the day that marked the start of the Guerra dels Segadors
(the Reaper's War). This war lasted 11 long years, during which Barcelona was put under siege for 14 months, a siege that proved decisive in bringing an
end to the conflict. As a result of that war, France and Spain signed the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, which saw the counties in the north of the
Principality – Rosselló (Roussillon), Conflent and part of Cerdanya (Cergagne) – pass into French hands.
The Barcelona of 11 September

When Charles ll of Spain, the last monarch of the House of Austria, died without leaving a legitimate heir, a major international

conflict was unleashed in 1701: the War of the Spanish Succession. Castile was in favour of the Bourbon line and Europe was split between those who

wanted to put the Bourbon pretender Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV of France, on the throne supported by the Castilians to strengthen French

expansionism, and those who favoured Archduke Charles III of Austria, who included England, Portugal and the Seven United Provinces of the

Netherlands. In this context, Catalonia, led by Barcelona, put itself on the side of the Archduke of Austria to maintain its own statutes, aware that the

Bourbons wanted to establish an absolute monarchy.

Barcelona welcomed the archduke as a great king, who even held his wedding here when he married Princess Elisabeth Christine of

Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in August 1708, in the Church of Santa Maria del Mar in the Born neighbourhood, an event which had all the people of

Barcelona out on the streets celebrating. But, in 1713, Spain and England signed the Treaty of Utrecht, recognising the Bourbon heir as the king of

Spain. In exchange, Philip V ceded territories which up to that point had been Spanish, including part of the Netherlands, Naples, and the Kingdom of

Sardinia, to the heir of the House of Austria, who was proclaimed emperor Charles VI.

The Catalans, in the thick of war, were left on their own, but they resisted. Barcelona suffered another long siege, holding out for yet

another 14 months in isolation, attacked with bombs and cannons . The city fell to the Bourbon troops on 11 September 1714. And with that, all

Catalonia surrendered.

Following the war, Philip V's army abolished the governmental institutions (the Consell de Cent and the Generalitat) along with the

Catalan universities, and imposed the New Plan Decree, which put an end to the old rights and freedoms. In addition, they ordered a large part of the

Ribera neighbourhood to be knocked down to the build the Ciutadella, a military citadel to keep an eye on the Barcelona populace, terrorising them for

over a hundred years. The remains of the demolished neighbourhood can now be seen at the Born Cultural Centre archaeological site.
The Modernisation of the city

Barcelona was seriously weakened following the War of Succession but there were many traders and entrepreneurs who set up new
activities that quickly took root. The construction of a new port and the opening up of sea trade at the end of the 18th century revived an activity that
involved many different crafts and trades, ranging from merchants to sailors and craftsmen who all had some connection or other with harbour
activities. The embryonic textile industry gave rise to a sector that spread and strengthened through the 19th century, with steam power being
introduced to factories and providing employment for large numbers of workers who arrived in Barcelona and populated the new working-class
neighbourhoods that sprang up outside the walls. Poblenou, Poble-sec, Sants and Hostafrancs were home to most of the city's industrial activity and
they still preserve the appearance of those times.

The 19th century was also a convulsive period with many military conflicts. Aside from the wars, there was the confrontation
between liberals and conservatives, and the bitter opposition of the people of Barcelona to the General Espartero regency, which prompted him to
order the shelling of Barcelona from Montjuïc Castle in December 1842, to put down and pacify the people.

But the stubborn populace continued to move forward. With their numbers growing, the city freed itself of the old medieval walls
and, following their demolition, entered an expansion phase based on the designs of the town planner and architect Ildefons Cerdà, known as the
Cerdà Plan. This led to the building of a new district, the Eixample. The middle of the 19th century was also the time when the people of the city
finally got back the land occupied by Bourbon troops in the old Ribera neighbourhood and succeeded in getting the military fortress knocked down.
The area was then transformed into a big park, though initially it was developed as a trade fair site for the Universal Exposition of 1888.

A new bourgeoisie, made wealthy by the rise of the industries, transformed Barcelona and made it more beautiful, adapting it to
the modern times. Architects like Antoni Gaudí, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Enric Sagnier and many, many others adopted the
prevailing style in Europe and filled the city, especially the new Eixample neighbourhood, with Modernista (Art Nouveau) buildings. This new era also
saw the beginnings of the Renaixença (Renaissance), a new stage in the recovery of the Catalan language and culture, which had been abolished since
the end of the War of Succession. This in turn laid the foundations for the birth of a new political Catalanism.
Plan of the Eixample
development in Barcelona
(1859), by Ildefons Cerdà.
Constricted by its medieval walls, Barcelona was suffocating – until unknown
engineer Ildefons Cerdà came up with a radical expansion plan.
In the mid-1850s, Barcelona was on the brink of collapse. An industrial city with a busy port, it had grown increasingly dense
throughout the industrial revolution, mostly spearheaded by the huge development of the textile sector.

The city was living at a faster pace than the rest of Spain, and was ready to become a European capital. Yet its population of 187,000
still lived in a tiny area, confined by its medieval walls.

With a density of 856 inhabitants per hectare (Paris had fewer than 400 at the time), the rising mortality rates were higher than
those in Paris and London; life expectancy had dropped to 36 years for the rich and just 23 years for the working classes. The walls were becoming a
health risk, almost literally suffocating the people of Barcelona – who were addressed directly in the following public statement of 1843:

“‘Down with the walls!’ has said this province’s council, and ‘Down with the walls!’ has no doubt answered your town hall, which knows the
importance of making this girdle disappear that is squeezing and choking us.”

Demolition work would finally start a year later. Now the city and the Spanish government had to design and manage the sudden
redistribution of an overflowing population. It was a controversial and highly political decision – which ultimately led to the then unknown Catalan
engineer Ildefons Cerdà’s radical expansion plan for a large, grid-like district outside the old walls, called Eixample (literally, “expansion”). In the
process, Cerdà also invented the word, and study of, “urbanisation”.
 By the early 19th century, the old walled city of Barcelona had become so crammed that the working classes, bourgeois society and
factories all co-existed in the same space. “Everyone was suffering the consequences of an Asian-level density,” says the writer and essayist Lluís
Permanyer, whose book Eixample: 150 Years of History chronicles that period.

As there was no more land left inside the city walls, all kinds of inventions were used to build more lodgings – houses were literally
being created on empty space. Arches were erected in the middle of streets to be built upon, and a technique called retreating façades saw house
fronts extended out into the street as they rose up – until they almost touched the building opposite (this practice was banned in 1770, as it
prevented air circulation).

Traffic – in those days, horse-drawn carts – was problematic too: the city’s narrowest street (now gone) was just 1.10 metres wide,
while around 200 were less than three metres across. This, combined with residents’ Mediterranean way of life (which meant being on the street
whenever it was light – and in the case of some artisanal professionals, working there too), worsened an already severe lack of hygiene in the city.

Barcelona’s epidemics were devastating: each time they broke out, 3% of the population died, according to Montserrat Pallarès-Barberà, geography
and urbanism professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Cholera alone killed more than 13,000 people between 1834 and 1865.

Into this came Cerdà. His plan consisted of a grid of streets that would unite the old city with seven peripheral villages (which later
became integral Barcelona neighbourhoods such as Gràcia and Sarrià). The united area was almost four times the size of the old city (which was
around 2 sq km) and would come to be known as Eixample.

This unknown engineer was revolutionary in what he envisioned – but also in how he got there. Cerdà decided to avoid repeating
past errors by undertaking a comprehensive study of how the working classes lived in the old city. “He had thought he would find all these urbanism
books, but there were none,” Permanyer says. So he was forced to do it himself.
 Cerdà’s eye was as careful as it is fascinating. His was the first meticulous scientific study both of what a modern city was, and what
it could aspire to be – not only as an efficient cohabiting space, but as a source of wellbeing (not a straightforward concept back then).

He calculated the volume of atmospheric air one person needed to breathe correctly. He detailed professions the population might
do, and mapped the services they might need, such as marketplaces, schools and hospitals. He concluded that, among other things, the narrower the
city’s streets, the more deaths occurred.

In short, Cerdà invented “urbanisation” – a word (and discipline) that didn’t exist in Spanish or Catalan, nor English or French, and
which he codified in his General Theory of Urbanisation in 1867. His work is still studied in Catalan schools to this day. “The high mortality rates of the
working class population, and poor health and education conditions, pushed Cerdà to design a new type of urban planning,” wrote Pallarès-Barberà in
a recent paper about the district.

Gardens in the centre of each street block; rich and poor accessing the same services; and smooth-flowing traffic were among his
then revolutionary, even utopian-sounding ideas – many of which materialised to at least some extent (although not the central gardens).

Eixample remains a prominent part of Barcelona’s image today: the octagonal blocks, chamfered in the corners, were his unique idea
to deal with traffic, allowing drivers to see more easily what was happening to the left and right. Cars hadn’t even been invented yet – but when Cerdà
discovered railways: “He realised there would be some sort of small machines moved by steam that each driver could stop in front of their house,”
Permanyer explains. Even today, this design makes traffic circulation infinitely easier in Eixample.

And yet, none of these ideas were well-received or appreciated in Barcelona at the time. In fact, when the council originally opened a public
competition for the extension plan in 1859, it had awarded it to its chief architect, Antoni Rovira. But in an unexpected intervention, the Spanish
government stepped in and, via the creation of a new ministry of public works (which suddenly ruled over city councils), imposed Cerdà in a sign of
historical – and future – tensions between Spain’s central and Catalan administrations.
This would forever taint Cerdà’s legacy in the city. A well-travelled but little-known engineer when he began his career-defining project, he was
immediately mistrusted by Barcelona’s architects, who were in the middle of a considerable rivalry with engineers. As it was impossible to
oppose the rulings coming from Madrid, his opponents instead tried to discredit him ideologically and intellectually.

Leading architects such as Domènech i Montaner (designer of the city’s celebrated Palau de la Música) and Josep Puig i Cadafalch slashed and
patronised the streets’ excessive width, the monotony of the grid, and the sameness of the “communist phalanstery-like squares”.

“He has been nibbling at and turning all the gardens ... and spaces destined to public buildings into the monotony of an American city, destined
for a pretentious tribe without more aspirations than the agglomeration of houses to eat, drink and sleep,” wrote Cadafalch.
• Barcelona enters the 20th century with true
Catalan Pride: the architecture at this time is
modernism, which celebrates Cataluna’s history
and becomes an icon of Barcelona.

• Soon after the Spanish war begins, lasting for 3

years, followed by Franco whose dictatorship
last for 35 years. After Franco’s reign,
Barcelona’s government is reinstated and its
economy grows.

• In 1992, Barcelona holds the summer Olympics,

which results in the restoration of Barcelona
and the construction of the Olympic Village.
From the 20th to the 21st century
While the city’s industry and population were growing, social and political events, notably the Spanish Civil War and the long period of dictatorship
that followed, set the tone for a time of upheaval. At the end of the 20th century, with the arrival of democracy, Barcelona rose again like a
Phoenix, determined to become a great 21st century metropolis.

The light of a new era

The introduction of electricity at the beginning of the 20th century marked a new stage in the future of the industrial city. The Companyia
Barcelonesa d’Electricitat was set up and by 1925 it was producing a third of all power generated in Spain and 70% of Catalonia's power.
Increasing industrial activity and the continual need for more workers led to the growth of the working class, which showed its discontent with
working conditions. At the end of July 1909 a general strike broke out that developed into a popular revolt known as Tragic Week. During several
days of social confrontation, churches and convents were burnt and there were fires and looting all over Barcelona. The revolt was put down by
the army and 2,500 people were arrested. But the social unrest continued and the consolidation of the labour movement led to important gains,
notably the introduction of the 8-hour day.
Noucentista Barcelona

At the same time there was an outburst of Catalan national feeling. At the beginning of the 20th century, a number of politicians
and intellectuals began to work together to revive the Catalan language and culture, giving rise to a movement known as
Noucentisme. This new style spread to literature and the arts, and dressed the city in a new style of architecture that saw a return
to the classical forms of its Mediterranean heritage, in contrast to the exuberance of Modernisme. TheNoucentistes started to
reform and improve the education system. Volien fer de Barcelona la capital de la cultura catalana, i van crear a la ciutat
institucions com l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans i la Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya.

On 6 April 1914 a political event took place that marked a turning point for Catalonia. The Mancomunitat was inaugurated at the
Palau de la Generalitat under the presidency of Enric Prat de la Riba. This institution finally allowed thefour Catalan provinces to
unite and signified recognition of Catalonia's territorial unity for the first time since 1714. The city grew in strength and itsindustrial
growth continued with the introduction of new sectors, such as engineering and chemicals. Between 1920 and 1930 there was a
big wave of migration, with people coming mainly from the south of the peninsula, which resulted in the construction of 13,000
buildings in the city. Barcelona was paved and electrified, it gained new infrastructures such as the sewer system and the metro as a
new form of public transport.