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Barcelona's city development plan is a textbook example of innovative urban planning, transforming the city landscape through the introduction of wide, grid-patterned streets that greatly enhance mobility and accessibility. Discussion questions: 1) How does Barcelona's grid pattern contribute to improved urban mobility? 2) In what ways can other cities take inspiration from Barcelona's planning initiatives?

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The urban planning of Barcelona developed in accordance with the historical and territorial changes of the city, and in line with other defining factors of public space, such as architecture, urban infrastructure and the adaptation and maintenance of natural spaces, parks and gardens.

The urban evolution of Barcelona has been constant since its foundation in Roman times to the present day, although since the nineteenth century it has been accentuated thanks to the Eixample plan and the aggregation of neighboring municipalities. Until the nineteenth century the city was constrained by its medieval walls as it was considered a military square, so its growth was limited. The situation changed with the demolition of the walls and the donation to the city of the fortress of the Citadel, which led to the expansion of the city across the adjacent plain, a fact that was reflected in the Eixample project drawn up by Ildefons Cerdà, which was the largest territorial expansion of Barcelona. Another significant increase in the area of the Catalan capital was the annexation of several municipalities adjoining Barcelona between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which led to a Plan of Connections ( Spanish: Plan de Enlaces) drawn up in 1903. Subsequently, urban development was marked by the increase in population due to immigration from other parts of Spain, which led to various urban projects such as the Regional Plan of 1953 or the Metropolitan General Plan of 1976. Likewise, the adaptation of the urban space of the city has been favored between the 19th and 21st centuries by various events held in the city, such as the Universal Exposition of 1888, the International Exposition of 1929, the International Eucharistic Congress held in 1952, the 1992 Summer Olympics, the 1992 Summer Paralympics and the Universal Forum of Cultures of 2004.

Urban development in recent years and the commitment to design and innovation, as well as the linking of urban planning with ecological values and sustainability, have made the Catalan capital one of the leading European cities in the field of urban planning, a fact that has been recognized with numerous awards and distinctions, such as the Prince of Wales Award for Urban Planning from Harvard University (1990) and the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1999. The work carried out and the awards received have led to talk of a "Barcelona Model" of urban planning, which has served as a guide for numerous cities that have embarked on similar paths.

Barcelona, capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, is located in the Spanish Levant, on the Mediterranean coast. Its geographical location is between 41°16' and 41°30' north latitude and between 1°54' and 2°18' east longitude. With an area of 102.16 km², it is situated on a plain about 11 km long and 6 km wide, bounded on its sides by the sea and by the Collserola mountain range -with the summit of Tibidabo (516.2 m) as its highest point-, as well as by the deltas of the Besós and Llobregat rivers. Above the coastline and separating the city from the Llobregat delta is the mountain of Montjuïc (184.8 m). Also, from the Collserola mountain range, several hills that follow a line parallel to the coastal range rise up on the plain: the hills of La Peira (133 m), La Rovira (261 m), El Carmel (267 m), Creueta del Coll (249 m), El Putget (181 m) and Monterols (121 m).

The plain of Barcelona is not uniform, but has several undulations caused by the many torrents that once crossed the land, and also has a uniform slope from the sea to the Collserola mountain range, with an ascent of about 260 m. It is crossed by several faults, mainly the one that separates the Collserola mountain range from the hills that come forward in the plain, with a northeast-southwest orientation, and the one that separates the mountain of Montjuic from the coast. The terrain is formed by a substrate of slate and granitic formations, as well as clays and limestones. The coast was formerly occupied by tidal marshes and salt-water lagoons, which disappeared as the coastline advanced thanks to the sediments provided by the rivers and streams that flowed into the beach; it is estimated that since the sixth century BC, the coastline has been able to advance about 5 km. The area of the plain was formerly crossed by numerous torrents and streams, which were grouped into three fluvial sectors: Horta stream in the area near the Besòs river (or eastern area); the Blanca stream and the Gornal torrent in the Llobregat area (or western area); and, in the central area of the plain, a group of streams coming from the southern slope of Tibidabo, such as the San Gervasi, Vallcarca, Magòria and Collserola streams.

Barcelona, capital of the Barcelonès region and of the province of Barcelona, is the most important urban center in Catalonia in demographic, political, economic and cultural terms. 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. With a population of 1,604,555 inhabitants in 2015, it is the second most populous city in Spain after Madrid, and the eleventh most populous in the European Union.

Barcelona is divided into 10 districts and 73 neighborhoods:

Ciutat Vella (4.49 km², 100 685 inhabitants): corresponds to the old core of the city, the one derived from the Roman and medieval periods, plus the Barceloneta neighborhood, created in the eighteenth century. This area received much immigration from the rest of Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, settled mainly in the neighborhoods of Sant Pere and Raval; it has continued to do so during the twenty-first century, although with immigrants from other countries. This district has the oldest and lowest socioeconomic level population in the city, although in the new millennium a slow process of gentrification has begun in parallel to the urban development plans carried out in the district. Being the oldest part of the city, it has numerous monuments and architectural works of interest, making it an important focus of tourist attraction. On the other hand, it houses the most important institutions of the city, such as the City Hall or the Generalitat de Catalunya.[14]

Eixample (7.46 km², 263,565 inhabitants): this district arose from the expansion of the old city after the demolition of the walls, thanks to the Cerdá Plan drawn up by Ildefons Cerdà. It is a densely populated district, since in its beginnings it was mainly a residential area where wealthy families stayed after leaving the old part of the city. The social level, however, has stabilized, and today corresponds mainly to the middle class. Even so, it is an important focus of tourist attraction, especially due to the presence of modernist architectural works, which has encouraged trade and the installation in the area of major commercial brands.[15]

Sants-Montjuïc (21.35 km², 180,824 inhabitants): includes the old town of Sants, annexed to Barcelona in 1897, together with the land of Montjuïc mountain, which makes it the largest district of the city; it also includes the Zona Franca. It has a low population density, and its rate of population of foreign origin exceeds the average. It has a high percentage of green area, thanks mainly to the presence of the Montjuic mountain, as well as industrial land.[16]

Les Corts (6.08 km², 81,200 inhabitants): it comes from the old town of Les Corts de Sarrià, added to the city in 1897, with a probable origin in a medieval masia. It was an eminently agricultural area, which in the mid-nineteenth century experienced a significant urban growth with the construction of the area called Corts Noves. The population is mainly autochthonous, and stands out for its high rate of young people. The majority is middle class, although the Pedralbes neighborhood stands out as one of the most exclusive in the city. Its main economic activity is in the tertiary sector, and it is home to numerous financial institutions and office centers.[17]

Sarrià-Sant Gervasi (20.09 km², 145,761 inhabitants): it comes from the union of two former municipalities, Sarrià and Sant Gervasi de Cassoles. It is one of the largest districts, especially because it includes a large part of the Collserola mountain range. It is also the district with the lowest population density, mainly because it is a high status residential area, with a predominance of single-family houses. The economy is dominated by quality facilities, as well as private schools and health centers. Its population has the highest rate of higher education and technical and managerial professionals, as well as autochthonous residents, while the foreign population is dominated by the European Union.[18]

Gràcia (4.19 km², 120,273 inhabitants): has its origins in the old village of Gràcia, incorporated into the city in 1897. It was an agricultural area, which in the early nineteenth century began to forge an urban and industrial fabric. It has one of the highest population densities in the city, since its old center is characterized by narrow streets and tightly packed houses. Its population has a high percentage of elderly people and, although the level of education is above average, most are of lower-middle social class.[19]

Neighborhoods of Barcelona.

Horta-Guinardó (11.96 km², 166,950 inhabitants): comes from the old town of Horta, added in 1904, to which the Guinardó district, formerly belonging to Sant Martí de Provençals, was added administratively. It was an agricultural area and summer residences, which received numerous immigrants, especially in the first two thirds of the twentieth century. Being a peripheral area, it has a low population density, with a predominance of young and lower-middle class population. During the years of massive immigration, it was an area of strong real estate speculation.[20]

Nou Barris (8.04 km², 164,516 inhabitants): is the most recently created district, on land segregated from Sant Andreu de Palomar. It is a peripheral area with a majority immigrant population, which also suffered from strong real estate speculation and even suffered from shantyism and self-construction, and which for a long time has suffered from a significant lack of assistance, infrastructure and basic services, which have been mitigated in recent times. The majority of the population is working class and has low purchasing power.[21]

Sant Andreu (6.56 km², 145,983 inhabitants): corresponds to the former municipality of Sant Andreu de Palomar, annexed in 1897. It was an agricultural and milling area until the mid-nineteenth century, when numerous industries began to settle. On the other hand, in the mid-twentieth century it received a strong wave of immigration, which was received in neighborhoods of cheap houses and residential estates, such as the Bon Pastor and Baró de Viver. In recent times it has experienced a certain revitalization thanks to commercial activities such as the location of the La Maquinista center or the urbanization of the surroundings of La Sagrera Station to accommodate the arrival of the AVE high-speed train.[22]

Sant Martí (10.80 km², 232,629 inhabitants): it comes from the old town of Sant Martí de Provençals, added in 1897. Like the previous one, it was an agricultural and milling area, until the arrival of the Industrial Revolution when numerous factories were installed in the area; however, in recent decades it has suffered a process of deindustrialization, replaced by economic activities more based on new technologies, especially after the location of the so-called 22@ district. This district also welcomed a large immigrant population. Thanks to the 1992 Olympic Games, it underwent a process of renovation of the entire waterfront, where the Olympic Village was located.[23]

Map of Barcelona divided into districts and neighborhoods approved in session of 31 October 1878, anonymous engraving.

The administrative division has varied over time. The first delimitation was established in 1389, when the city was divided into four quarters: Framenors, Pi, Mar and Sant Pere. 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. This separation already showed the social difference between the different parts of the city: Framenors was an aristocratic neighborhood, Pi was residential and civil service, Sant Pere was industrial and commercial, and Mar was popular and religious, since it housed most of the convents and monasteries. In the 15th century, another quarter, Raval, was added, establishing a division that lasted until the 18th century.

In 1769 a reform was made by which five quarters were created, each subdivided into eight neighborhoods: I-Palacio included the port and the new neighborhood of Barceloneta; II-San Pedro was an eminently industrial area; III-Audiencia corresponded to the center of the city; IV- Casa de la Ciudad was a mostly residential area; and V-Raval included the land west of La Rambla.

Numerous divisions were made in the 19th century, most of them for political reasons, since the districts also marked the electoral districts. The most notable were those of 1837, in which the city was divided into four districts (Lonja, San Pedro, Universidad and San Pablo); and that of 1878, after the demolition of the walls, in which 10 districts were established: I-La Barceloneta, II-Borne, III-Lonja, IV-Atarazanas, V-Hospital, VI-Audiencia, VII-Instituto, VIII-Universidad, IX-Hostafranchs and X-Concepción.

Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several neighboring municipalities were added to the city ( Sants, Les Corts, Sant Gervasi de Cassoles, Gràcia, Sant Andreu de Palomar, Sant Martí de Provençals, Sant Joan d'Horta, Sarrià); a new administrative reorganization was then carried out, again with 10 districts: I-Barceloneta and Pueblo Nuevo, II-San Pedro, III-Lonja and Audiencia, IV-Concepción, V-Atarazanas and Hospital, VI-Universidad, VII-Sans, Las Corts and Hostafranchs, VIII-Gracia and San Gervasio, IX-Horta and Sant Andreu de Palomar, X-Sant Martí de Provençals.

In 1933 a new reformulation was made, also with ten districts: I-Barceloneta, II-Poble Sec and Montjuïc, III-Sarrià, Vallvidrera and Sant Gervasi, IV- Sant Pere and Dreta de l'Eixample, V-Raval, VI-Esquerra de l'Eixample, VII-Sants, Les Corts and Hostafrancs, VIII-Gràcia, IX-Horta, Sant Andreu del Palomar, Sagrera and Camp de l'Arpa, X-Sant Martí de Provençals, Clot and Poblenou. These districts were expanded in 1949 with two more: XI-Les Corts and XII-Sagrada Família.

The last reform was carried out in 2006, this time aimed at establishing the neighborhoods that make up each district, with the objective of improving the distribution of facilities and proximity services. Seventy-three neighborhoods were established, stipulated according to historical, cultural and social criteria, although the decision was not without controversy, mainly due to the fragmentation of some historical neighborhoods defended as units by the neighborhood associations: thus, for example, from the neighborhood of El Clot was segregated El Camp de l'Arpa; from Sants was segregated the neighborhood of Badal; Esquerra de l'Eixample was divided between La Nova and L'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample; and Poblenou was fragmented into five neighborhoods. Similarly, some neighborhood units were not satisfied with their aspirations to become neighborhoods, such as Can Caralleu, Penitents, Torre Melina or El Polvorí.

Barcelona was founded by Roman colonizers in the first century BC with the name of Barcino. Originally, it was a small walled city which took the urban form of castrum initially, and later , seated on the Mons Taber (16.9 meters above sea level), a small hill located on the site of the current Plaça de Sant Jaume. The maximum splendor of the Roman period took place during the second century, with a population that must have ranged between 3500 and 5000 inhabitants.

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. The center of the city was the , the central square dedicated to public life and business. It was located at the confluence of the cardus maximus (Llibreteria and Call streets) and the decumanus maximus (Bisbe, Ciutat and Regomir streets), approximately in the center of the walled enclosure. From this center, the city followed an orthogonal layout, with square or rectangular blocks, following a grid layout based on two main axes: a horizontal axial order (northwest-southwest) and a vertical one (southeast-northeast), which would mark the future layout of the city, and would be collected by Ildefonso Cerdá in his Plan de Eixample of 1859.

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. The enclosure of Barcino was walled, with a perimeter of 1.5 km, which protected a space of 10.4 ha. The first wall of the city, of simple construction, began to be built in the first century B.C. It had few towers, only in the corners and at the gates of the walled perimeter. However, the first incursions by Franks and Alemanni from the 250s onwards made it necessary to reinforce the walls, which were enlarged in the 4th century. The new wall was built on the foundations of the first, and consisted of a double wall of 2 meters, with a space in the middle filled with stone and mortar. The wall consisted of 74 towers about 18 meters high, most of which were rectangular in base.

Of the rest of the urban elements preserved from the Roman period, it is worth mentioning the necropolis, a group of tombs located outside the walled area, in the current Plaça de la Vila de Madrid: it has more than 70 tombs from the second and third centuries, discovered by chance in 1954. There are also remains of two aqueducts that carried water to the city, one of them from the Collserola mountain range, to the northwest, and another from the north, taking water from the Besós river; both joined in front of the decuman gate of the city -currently the Plaça Nova-.

After the fall of the Roman Empire and until the formation of the Catalan counties, there were several conquests and the passage of successive civilizations, from the Visigoths and Arabs to a period of integration into the Carolingian Empire. This period was marked by the reuse of the Roman city and the use of its urban structure, which did not undergo significant changes. A noteworthy aspect of this period is its consideration as a military stronghold, which will lead it to acquire hegemony over other surrounding cities and become the capital of its territory. The colonization of the surrounding countryside also began at this time, within a system of feudal structure, as well as a certain suburbanization began, with the appearance of the first suburbs.

Medieval Barcelona arose from the reconstruction of the city after its near destruction by Almanzor in 985, starting again as the main nucleus of the structure and the wall from Roman times. The city underwent numerous changes as a center of political and religious power, a center of trade and craft production, and as the nexus of a new and complex network of social and institutional relations. Thus, the city acquired an autonomy of its own, a singularity within the surrounding territory, becoming the center of a hinterland that would mark the organization of the modern city.

Outside the city walls, the plain of Barcelona was devoted to agriculture, especially dedicated to supplying the city: it was known as the hort i vinyet de Barcelona ("orchard and vineyard"), which produced fruit, vegetables and wine, in an area between the streams of Horta and Sants, and between the Collserola mountain range, Puig Aguilar and Coll de Codines to the sea. This agricultural development was consolidated with the construction, in the middle of the 10th century -and probably by Count Miró- of two canals that directed the waters of the Llobregat and Besòs rivers to the vicinity of the city: the Besòs canal was known as or Regomir, and was parallel to the Strata Francisca, a road that was a variant of the ancient Roman Via Augusta, and was built by the Franks to better bring the city closer to the center of the Carolingian Empire.

Once the danger of Muslim incursions was over, the first settlements outside the city walls were established. Various population centers ( vila nova) were created, generally around churches and monasteries: this was the case around the church of Santa Maria del Mar, where a neighborhood of port character was created; likewise around the church of Sant Cugat del Rec, of an agrarian character; the neighborhood of Sant Pere around Sant Pere de les Puelles; the neighborhood of El Pi arose around the church of Santa Maria del Pi; that of Santa Anna next to the church of the same name; the neighborhood of Arcs settled around the Portal del Bisbe; and the Mercadal, around the market of Portal Major. The Raval neighborhood ( Catalan for "suburb"), initially a suburb populated by orchards and some religious buildings, such as the monastery of Sant Pau del Camp (914), the church of Sant Antoni Abat (1157), the convent of the Carmelites Calçats (1292), the priory of Nazareth (1342) or the monastery of Montalegre (1362), was also formed little by little.

The creation of these new neighborhoods made it necessary to extend the walled perimeter, so in 1260 a new wall was built from Sant Pere de les Puelles to the Drassanes, facing the sea. The new section was 5100 m long and covered an area of 1.5 km². The enclosure had eighty towers and eight new gates, among which were several enclaves of relevance today, such as the Portal de l'Àngel, the Portaferrissa or La Boqueria. A network of fortifications was also built in the urban periphery for the defense of the city, such as the castle of the Port, in Montjuïc; those of Martorell and Castellví de Rosanes, at the entrance of the Llobregat river; those of Eramprunyà ( Gavà) and Castelldefels in the delta of the same river; and that of Montcada at the entrance of the Besòs river.

The medieval urban fabric was marked by different areas of influence, from the aristocracy and institutional power, through the bishopric and religious orders, to the guilds and the various trade associations. The network of streets was irregular, and the squares were mere widenings of the streets, or plots of land derived from the demolition of a house, which were usually used to store wheat, wool or coal. The houses were usually of the "artisan type", with a first floor for the workshop and one or two floors for living, generally measuring 4 m wide and 10-12 m deep, sometimes with a small vegetable garden at the back. The larger buildings were either churches or palaces, along with some institutional buildings, such as the Casa de la Ciutat, seat of the Consell de Cent -later City Hall- or the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya, seat of the homonymous political institution of the Principality, as well as a hospital -such as the Santa Creu- or buildings such as the Llotja or the Drassanes.

In 1209, one of the first private urban planning operations in the city took place, the opening of Montcada street, thanks to the concession made by Peter II to Guillem Ramon de Montcada; a wide, straight street was laid out, running from the Bòria to the sea, and was occupied by large stately residences. 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.

Finally, it is worth noting that during the Middle Ages an extensive network of roads emerged in the plain of Barcelona that connected the city with the various suburbs and villages in the vicinity, as well as other points of interest: farmhouses (Melina tower road), mills (Verneda road), quarries (Creu dels Molers road), bleaching meadows (Teulat road), churches or chapels (Sant Llàtzer road), fountains (Font dels Ocellets road), etc.

This period was not one of excessive urban reforms, since the loss of Barcelona's capital status meant that large-scale projects were not carried out. In the first half of the 16th century, the sea wall was built, where the bastions of Llevant, Torre Nova, Sant Ramon and Migdia were placed. Otherwise, the main urban reform was in the area around the cathedral, where the Plaça de la Seu was opened, in front of the main portal of the cathedral (1546), as well as the Plaça de San Iu, with a space cut out of the Grand Royal Palace.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, an artificial port was built to finally meet the needs of the important mercantile center that was Barcelona: paradoxically, during the period of splendor of Catalan trade in the Mediterranean, Barcelona did not have a port prepared for the port volume that was common in the city. The old port at the foot of Montjuïc had been abandoned, and the city had only the beach to receive passengers and goods. Deep-draught ships had to unload by means of boats and rope lads (). Finally, in 1438, royal permission was obtained to build a port: first, a ship loaded with stones was sunk to serve as a base for the wall that connected the beach to the island of Maians; the wall was reinforced in 1477 and lengthened in the form of a breakwater in 1484. In the mid-16th century, the port was enlarged in response to the campaign launched by Charles I against Tunisia. At the end of the century, the quay had a length of 180 m by 12 m wide.

With the construction of the port, the seafront between Pla de Palau and La Rambla was embanked, thus urbanizing the Passeig del Mar, now Passeig de Colom. At this time the water supply and sewage system was also improved, and for its maintenance the figure of the mestre de les fonts ("master of the fountains") was instituted, in charge of the care of mines, fountains and gutters.

In the 17th century, the city wall was extended again with the construction of five new gates (Sant Sever, Tallers, Sant Antoni, Sant Pau and Santa Madrona, the latter a reconstruction of the 14th century one). Streets were also paved, sewers were installed, drinking water fountains were built and improvement works were carried out in the port.

The arrival of the Bourbons generated a series of military engineering works, such as the castle of Montjuïc and the fortress of the Citadel. For the construction of the Citadel (1715-1751), 1200 houses in the Ribera neighborhood were demolished, leaving 4500 people homeless and without compensation, and the Rec Comtal was diverted. The work of Jorge Próspero de Verboom, it was a pentagonal walled bastion, with a protective moat and an esplanade of 120 m between the walls and the surrounding buildings. Demolished in the Revolution of 1868, on its perimeter was installed the park of the Citadel.

In 1753, the construction of the neighborhood of La Barceloneta began at the initiative of the Marquis of La Mina. 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. In this neighborhood was located in 1772 the Clock Tower, the first lighthouse of the city; it was followed by the Llobregat in 1845 and Montjuïc in 1925.

In 1771, the Edicto de obreria was approved, a municipal ordinance aimed at controlling private works in the city, which involved the regulation of the alignment of houses according to the layout of the streets, as well as the supervision of aspects such as the paving of the streets, the sewage system, the numbering of houses, etc. This edict established for the first time the obligation to request a building permit, accompanied by a report and the payment of the respective fees. Likewise, in 1797 a height limit was established for all buildings. During this century there was a change in the typology of private buildings, which went from the "artisan house" of the medieval type to the "multi-family house" with a collective staircase, which definitively separated work from residence.

Between 1776 and 1778 the redevelopment of La Rambla was carried out, an ancient torrent that during the Middle Ages marked the western boundary of the city, which had been populated since the 16th century, mainly by theaters and convents. At this time the inner wall was demolished, the buildings were realigned and a new landscaped promenade, in the style of the French , was designed. The paseos of Sant Joan and Gràcia were also planned, although they were not built until the turn of the century for the former and 1820-1827 for the latter. Likewise, the street of the Count of the Assault -currently New Street of La Rambla- (1778-1789) was laid out, named after Francisco González de Bassecourt, captain general of Catalonia, who had the initiative to create the street. In 1797 the Paseo Nuevo or Paseo de la Explanada was also created, located next to the military Citadel, a wide avenue lined with poplars and elms and decorated with ornamental fountains, which for a time was the main green space of the city, but disappeared in the urbanization works of the park of the Citadel.

During the eighteenth century, the Born and Boqueria markets were established as the only two general supply markets, and in 1752 aspects such as weights and measures for the marketing of food products, in addition to coal, were regulated.

Although chintz printing was well established in Barcelona since the 18th century, the industrial era proper began with the founding in 1832 of the Bonaplata Factory, founded by Josep Bonaplata. In 1849 the complex La España Industrial, owned by the Muntadas brothers, was opened in Sants. The textile industry grew steadily until a crisis in 1861, caused by the shortage of cotton due to the American Civil War. The metallurgical industry was also gaining importance, boosted by the creation of the railroad and steam navigation. In 1836 the Nueva Vulcano foundry opened in La Barceloneta and, in 1841, La Barcelonesa began, one of the predecessors of La Maquinista Terrestre y Marítima (1855), one of the most important factories in the history of Barcelona.

Map of Barcelona and its surroundings (1855), by Ildefons Cerdà

During this century, the municipal ordinances that began with the Edicto de obrería (Workmen's Edict) were consolidated: in 1814, the Pregón de policía urbana (Proclamation of Urban Police) established in 84 articles all the provisions on civil building, maintenance of public spaces and various regulations on security and public order. In 1839, the Bando general de buen gobierno (General Good Governance Charter) renewed and expanded these provisions and, among other things, regulated the relationship between the width of streets and the height of buildings. On the other hand, the law of 8 January 1845 established the City Council's own attributions in various aspects such as urban planning, regulating the sanitary conditions of public spaces, as well as the conditioning of streets, squares and markets. 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. For the first time, building permits were required to include an interior layout plan. These ordinances soon became obsolete due to the new Eixample plan, until in 1891 new ones were drawn up that took into account the new specificities of the expansion and new links in the city. Among other things, the area of occupation of the plots was increased from 50% -established in the Cerdà Plan of 1859- to 70%.

Among the main urban planning actions of these years were the opening of Calle de Fernando (Ferran) in 1827, between La Rambla and the Plaza de San Jaime (Sant Jaume), with a later continuation towards the Borne with the streets of Jaime I (Jaume I) (1849-53) and Princesa (1853). In 1833 the expansion of the Pla de Palau began, which was then the nerve center of the city, with the presence of the Royal Palace, the Llotja and the Aduana. The square was enlarged and the Portal de Mar was built (1844-1848), a monumental gateway to Barceloneta from the old quarter, the work of Josep Massanès, which was demolished in 1859 along with the city walls. Massanès was also the author of a widening plan in 1838 that was never completed, which included the triangle between Canaletes, Plaça de la Universitat and Plaça Urquinaona, and which already sketched what would become Plaça de Catalunya, located in the center of the triangle.

Similarly, the new sanitary provisions enacted at this time led to the disappearance of numerous parish cemeteries, whose plots were developed as new public squares: thus, squares such as Santa Maria, del Pi, Sant Josep Oriol, Sant Felip Neri, Sant Just, Sant Pere and San Jaime (Sant Jaume) came into being. The latter became the political heart of the city, since the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat de Catalunya were located there. On the other hand, the disappearance of the parish cemeteries led to the creation of a new cemetery located outside the city, the cemetery of the East or Pueblo Nuevo (Poblenou), based on a project of 1773 but which was built mainly between 1813 and 1819. It was followed in 1883 by the Southwest or Montjuic cemetery, while already in the 20th century, the North or Collserola cemetery was built (1969).

In 1842, one of the clearest factors of modernity derived from new scientific advances, the gas lighting, began. The first illuminated streets were La Rambla, Fernando Street and the Plaza de San Jaime, specifically with gas produced by dry distillation of black coal ( town gas). That year the Sociedad Catalana para el Alumbrado por Gas (Catalan Society for Gas Lighting) was created, renamed in 1912 as Catalana de Gas y Electricidad. In 1856, gas was successfully applied to domestic stoves and heaters.

One of the major factors in the dynamization of the city as the capital of a large metropolitan area was the arrival of the railroad: in 1848, the first railroad line in peninsular Spain left from Barcelona, connecting Barcelona with the town of Mataró. The stations of Francia (1854), Sants (1854) and Norte (1862) were then created. The Catalan capital became the center of a railway network in the shape of an 8 -the so-called "Catalan eight"- formed by two rings that intersected in the city. In the 1880s there were already links with France, Madrid, Zaragoza and Valencia, in addition to the rest of the Catalan provincial capitals. Two companies operated at that time: Ferrocarril del Norte and MZA (Madrid-Zaragoza-Alicante), integrated in 1941 in RENFE.

The city's first fire and police services also appeared at this time. In 1843 the Guardia Urbana de Barcelona was created, in charge of the defense of public safety; in 1938 they also assumed control of traffic and urban circulation. On the other hand, in 1849 the Sociedad de Socorro Mutuo contra Incendios (Mutual Fire Aid Society) emerged, a private company that in 1865 was replaced by the Sociedad de Extinción de Incendios y Salvamento de Barcelona (Barcelona 's Fire Extinguishing and Rescue Companyy), he first public fire department managed by the City Council. Its first chief was the architect Antoni Rovira i Trias, and its first firehouse was the Casa de Comunes Depósitos (House of Common Warehousess) which was followed by multiple firehouses throughout the city. In 1908, animal-drawn vehicles were replaced by motor vehicles, and in 1913 the figure of the firefighter, until then casual, was professionalized.

Barcelona from a bird's eye view (1857), by Onofre Alsamora.

In the middle of the century, the Diputation of Barcelona took charge of establishing new road layouts in the Barcelona plain: the Sarrià road (now Sarrià Avenue), designed by Ildefons Cerdà and built between 1850 and 1853; the road from Sants to Les Corts (1865-1867); and the road from Sagrera to Horta (1871), now Garcilaso Street. In these years, the port, increasingly important as a source of raw materials -especially cotton and coal -, was improved with the construction of a new wharf and the dredging of the port by the engineer José Rafo, who presented his project in 1859.

On the other hand, in 1855 the telegraph service began, with a network of radial character centered in Madrid, which from 1920 was extended peripherally with Valencia, Seville and A Coruña. Controlled by the State, the service was incorporated into the postal service, creating the Dirección General de Correos y Telégrafos (General Directorate of Posts and Telegraphs).

It should also be noted that the first public parks appeared in the nineteenth century, as the increase in urban environments due to the phenomenon of the Industrial Revolution, often in conditions of environmental degradation, made it advisable to create large urban parks and gardens, which were paid for by the public authorities, thus giving rise to public gardening -until then preferably private- and landscape architecture. The first public garden in Barcelona was created in 1816: the General's Garden, an initiative of Captain General Francisco Javier Castaños; it was located between the present Marqués de la Argentera avenue and the Citadel, in front of where today is the station of Francia, and had an area of 0.4 ha, until it disappeared in 1877 during the development of the park of the Citadel. At this time several gardens were installed on Passeig de Gràcia: in 1848 the Tívoli Gardens were created, between Valencia and Consell de Cent streets; and in 1853 the so-called Champs Elysées, with a garden, a lake with boats, a theater and an amusement park with roller coasters, were located between Aragon and Roussillon streets. These gardens disappeared a few years later with the urbanization of Passeig de Gràcia.

Expansion of Barcelona (Example)

Map of the surroundings of the city of Barcelona and the project for its improvement and expansion, by Ildefons Cerdà (1859)

In the middle of the century a transcendental event took place that completely changed the physiognomy of the city; the demolition of the walls. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the population grew steadily (from 34,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the eighteenth century to 160,000 in the mid-nineteenth century), which led to an alarming increase in population density (850 inhabitants per hectare), endangering the health of the citizens. However, due to its status as a stronghold, the central government opposed the demolition of the walls. A strong popular outcry began, led by Pedro Felipe Monlau, who in 1841 published the memoir ¡Abajo las murallas! (Down with the walls!) in which he defended their destruction to prevent diseases and epidemics. Finally, in 1854, permission was granted for their demolition, which gave the way out for the territorial expansion of the city.

In 1859 the City Council appointed a commission to promote a competition for urban expansion projects, which was won by Antoni Rovira i Trias; however, the Ministry of Development intervened and imposed the project of Ildefons Cerdà, author of a topographic plan of the Barcelona plan and a demographic and urbanistic study of the city (1855). The Cerdà Plan ( Plan de los alrededores de la ciudad de Barcelona y del proyecto para su mejora y ampliación, 1859) instituted an orthogonal layout between Montjuic and the Besòs, with a system of straight northwest-southeast oriented streets, 20 meters wide, cut by other southwest-northeast oriented streets parallel to the coast and the Collserola mountain range. Cerdà had planned to build on only two sides and leave the other spaces for gardens, although this point was not fulfilled and finally practically all the buildable land was used; the buildings were designed with an octagonal floor plan characteristic of the Eixample, with chamfers that favored circulation. The plan called for the construction of several main avenues: Diagonal, Meridiana, Paral·lel, Gran Via and Passeig de Sant Joan, as well as several large squares at their intersections: Tetuan, Glòries, Espanya, Verdaguer, Letamendi and Universitat. It also foresaw the opening of three large avenues in the old part of the city: two that would connect the Eixample with the coast (Muntaner and Pau Claris) and another perpendicular one that would connect the Citadel with Montjuic ( avenida de la Catedral). It also contemplated a series of new ring roads that would circumvent the old city, in the place left by the walls: the ring roads of San Pablo, San Antonio, Universitat and Sant Pere.

Cerdá's project was quite innovative for the time, especially with regard to the delimitation of green spaces and service areas, taking into account both functional, recreational and welfare aspects. The buildings were to have a height of 16 meters (first floor and four floors), and a depth of 10 to 20 meters. The distribution of the Eixample was to be in sectors of 20 x 20 blocks, divided into districts of 10 x 10 and neighborhoods of 5 x 5. Each neighborhood was to have a church, a civic center, a school, a day care center, a nursing home and other welfare centers, while each district was to have a market and each sector a park. It also had industrial and administrative facilities, and in the suburbs there was a slaughterhouse, a cemetery and three hospitals. However, most of these provisions did not come to fruition, due to the opposition of the City Council, annoyed by the imposition of Cerdà's plan as opposed to Rovira's, which had been approved in the competition, and also due to real estate speculation, which led to building the blocks on all sides and not only on the two sides planned by Cerdá.

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.

It must be taken into account that in many cases the Cerdà plot was superimposed on suburban layouts already existing or under development, in addition to the fact that the towns bordering the city of Barcelona, which would be added in successive phases at the turn of the nineteenth century, had their own urban development projects. Among these layouts we must take into account the highways and rural roads, or the easements imposed by railroads, canals, irrigation ditches, torrents and other land features.

A tangential aspect of the new layout was the question of toponymy, since the new urban grid designed by Cerdá included a series of new streets for which there was no tradition when it came to naming them. The naming of the new streets was entrusted to the writer Víctor Balaguer, who was inspired by the history of Catalonia: Thus, many streets are named after territories linked to the Crown of Aragon, such as Valencia, Mallorca, Aragon, Provence, Roussillon, Naples, Corsica, Sicily or Sardinia; with institutions such as the Catalan Courts, the Generalitat or the Consell de Cent; with characters such as Jaime Balmes, Enrique Granados, Buenaventura Carlos Aribau, Ramón Muntaner, Rafael Casanova, Pau Claris, Roger de Flor, Antoni de Villarroel, Roger de Lauria, Ausiàs March or the Count of Urgel; or battles and historical events such as Bailén, Lepanto, El Bruch or Caspe.

The Cerdà Plan was developed mainly outside the city walls, due to real estate speculation, leaving aside the necessary improvements for the development of the old part of Barcelona. The need for a project of "interior renovations" was then raised, with the aim of modernizing the old core of the expanding city. One of the first was that of Miquel Garriga i Roca, author of a joint plan of alignments (1862), the first exhaustive plan of the city, at 1/250 scale. Garriga's project foresaw the realignment of streets as the basic method of a broad renovation of the city's interior, but the difficulty of its execution and the absence of expropriation mechanisms paralyzed this first project.

Interior renovation plan of Barcelona (1884), by Àngel Baixeras.

It is also worth mentioning the introduction of the tramway for urban transport. In 1860 an omnibus line had been opened along La Rambla, but the slowness of the carriages made this means of transport not very viable. In 1872, rails were laid for its traction, which lightened the transport, with imperial model cars -of English origin-, pulled by two or four horses. The line was extended from the port (Drassanes) to the village of Gracia, and later from the Drassanes to La Barceloneta. One of the first lines to operate was the English Barcelona Tramways Company Limited. In 1899 the streetcars were electrified.

In the 1880s the installation of electric lighting began, which gradually replaced the gas lighting on public roads. In 1882 the first street lamps were placed in the Plaça de Sant Jaume, and between 1887 and 1888 La Rambla and Passeig de Colom were electrified. However, the generalization of electric light did not take place until the beginning of the 20th century, with the invention of the light bulb, and it was not completed until 1929.

Another service that emerged at the end of the century was the telephone. The first telephone communication in the whole peninsula took place in Barcelona, in 1877, between the Montjuic castle and the fortress of the Citadel -in the process of dismantling but still housing a garrison-. That same year the first interurban transmission between Barcelona and Girona was carried out by the company Dalmau i Fills, pioneer in the installation of lines in Barcelona. In 1884 the state monopoly of the service was established, but two years later the company Sociedad General de Teléfonos de Barcelona (General Telephone Society of Barcelona) was authorized to operate it, which was later absorbed by the Compañía Peninsular de Teléfonos (Peninsular Telephone Company). In 1925 the service was nationalized by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, and the Compañía Telefónica Nacional de España (National Telephone Company of Spain) was created. In 1897 there were 2479 telephones in the city, a figure that grew progressively: in 1917 there were about 10 .00, in 1930 26 .00, in 1960 200 .00, in 1985 750 .00 and in 2000 there were 850 .00 telephones.

It should also be noted that in the last third of the century numerous supply markets were built, many of them made of iron, a fashionable element in the architecture of the time. The markets of Born (1872-1876), Sant Antoni (1872-1884), Hostafrancs (1881), La Barceloneta (1884), Concepción (1887-1888), Llibertat (1888-1893), Clot (1884-1889), Unió (1889), Gràcia (1892) and Sants (1898-1913) were built in this way.

At the end of the century, an event was held that had a great economic, social, urban, artistic and cultural impact on the city: the Universal Exposition of 1888. It took place between 8 April and 9 December 1888, and was held in the park of the Citadel, a land formerly belonging to the Army and won for the city in 1868. The incentive of the fair events led to the improvement of the infrastructure of the entire city, which took a huge leap towards modernization and development.

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. He also designed the urbanization of the new sector of the Born, composed of a hundred plots of land, which would present a common stylistic stamp, although it was finally only partially realized.

In addition to the Citadel, the Salón de San Juan (now Passeig de Lluís Companys), a long avenue 50 meters wide that served as the entrance to the Exposition, at the beginning of which was located the Arc de Triomf, designed by Josep Vilaseca, was remodeled. This promenade featured wrought iron balustrades, pavement mosaics and large lampposts, all designed by Pere Falqués. Most of the buildings and pavilions built for the Exposition disappeared after its completion, although the Castle of the Three Dragons and the Martorell Museum (both integral parts of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona), the Orangery and the Umbraculum survived, while part of the park grounds were later occupied by the Barcelona Zoo.

Numerous works and improvements were carried out throughout the city for the event: the urbanization of the entire seafront of the city was completed, between the Citadel Park and the Rambles, through the remodeling of the Passeig de Colom and a new pier, the Fusta; the urbanization of the Plaça de Catalunya began, a process that would culminate in 1929 thanks to another Exposition, the International Exhibition of Electrical Industries; Riera d'en Malla was covered, giving rise to the Rambla de Catalunya; Avenue of Paral·lel was begun; and Passeig de Sant Joan was extended towards Gràcia and Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes towards the west. The Golondrinas, pleasure boats that left in front of the statue of Columbus and offered a promenade to visitors, were also installed and still remain.

Barcelona subsoil sanitation project: sewerage, drainage, urban waste (1891), by Pere Garcia Fària

From the end of the century it is worth mentioning Pere Garcia Fària's project to regulate the city's sewage system ( Proyecto de saneamiento del subsuelo de Barcelona: alcantarillado, drenaje, residuos urbanos, 1891). It was a project that placed special emphasis on hygienism, with innovative criteria that are still in force today: it established a visitable sewerage network, 80 cm wide by 170 cm high, maintained by a municipal brigade that still performs its functions. It is a unitary system for rainwater and wastewater, which works mainly by gravity -except for a few small pumping stations- making it necessary to have large collectors in the lower part of the city. Thanks to this project, the sewerage network was extended in a few years from 31.2 km to 212 km. Around this time, the streets also began to be urbanized with tiled sidewalks and cobblestone roadways, replaced in the 1960s by asphalt.

It should also be noted that during the nineteenth century the increase in population and new industrial needs led to an increase in water consumption, which required a larger water collection and distribution network. Thus, at the end of the century a new pipeline was built from Dosrius ( Maresme), with a 17 km gallery and a 37 km aqueduct that brought water to the city. The first marketing companies appeared then, the main one of which was the Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona ( AGBAR), created in 1882.

During these years the Eixample was progressively urbanized, first thanks to private initiative and the so-called Sociedades de Fomento (Development societies), and from 1892 with the appearance of the Comisiones Especiales de Ensanche (Special Commissions for the Eixample) arising from the new Eixample Law of 1892. This law was based on the Law of Forced Expropriation of 1879, and developed a management system with public and private participation. The urbanization process used to have several phases: filling the area, parceling the land, installation of services such as sewerage, running water and lighting, and construction of buildings. Most houses used to be rented: the owner reserved the second floor ( planta noble) and rented the others.

Map of Barcelona and its surroundings in 1890, J. M. Serra. The municipalities that were added between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century can be seen around the old nucleus

The beginning of the century was marked by the geographical expansion of the city: in 1897 Barcelona annexed six neighboring towns, until then independent: Sants, Les Corts, San Gervasio de Cassolas, Gràcia, Sant Andreu de Palomar and Sant Martí de Provençals. Likewise, in 1904, Sant Joan d'Horta was annexed; in 1921, Sarrià and Santa Creu d'Olorda (a small piece of land in Collserola segregated from Molins de Rei); in 1924, Collblanc and the Marina de Hospitalet, where the Zona Franca was created; and, in 1943, Bon Pastor and Baró de Viver, segregated from Santa Coloma de Gramenet. The city grew from 15.5 km² to 77.8 km², and from a population of 383,908 to 559,589.

The annexation of the new municipalities raised the need for a plan to connect the city, which was put out to public tender in 1903 ( Concurso Internacional sobre anteproyectos de enlaces de la Zona de Ensanche de Barcelona y los pueblos agregados entre sí y con el resto del término municipal de Sarrià y Horta; "International Competition on preliminary projects to connect to each other the Barcelona Eixample Area and the towns added and with the rest of the municipality of Sarrià and Horta"), in which the French town planner Léon Jaussely was the winner. The integration of the new aggregated municipalities with Barcelona and between them was sought, with a predominance of the organizational aspects over the expansive ones, in an attempt to reformulate the Cerdà Plan, badly seen by the modernist generation. The Jaussely Plan was based on a structural scheme, with a differentiated treatment of the various urban fabrics, which recalls the type layouts in vogue in the international environments of the time. His proposal was based mainly on three criteria: a road scheme of main axes (five radial roads and two ring roads), the zoning of activities and the systematization of green spaces. The project envisaged large road infrastructures (boulevards, large squares, promenades, diagonals), parks and gardens, rail links -with underground interior lines-, public and collective buildings at the central points of the road layout, facilities and service areas. The project was only partially realized, and in 1917 it was reformulated with the so-called Romeu-Porcel Plan; however, the innovative nature of its ideas left a deep mark and inspired Barcelona's urban planning for much of the century.

The most important action in these years was the opening of the Via Laietana, which connected the Eixample with the sea, projected with the letter A in the Plan Baixeras of 1878. The works were finally carried out in 1908, with joint financing between the City Council and the Banco Hispano Colonial (Hispanic Colonial Bank), the first concerted operation in Barcelona. The new road was designed with the desire to create an avenue with a uniform appearance, so most of the buildings are of noucentista appearance, with some influence of the Chicago School. Criticism of the works for the opening of this road, which involved numerous demolitions of houses -some buildings of artistic value were moved-, paralyzed the construction of the other two roads planned by Baixeras, although later some punctual interventions were made in these places, according to the projects of Antoni Darder (1918), Joaquim Vilaseca (1932, Plan de Reforma, urbanización y enlace entre los puntos singulares del Casco Antiguo; "Renovation, urbanization and linkage plan between the singular points of the Old Town") and Soteras-Bordoy (1956, Plan parcial de Ordenación del Casco Antiguo de Barcelona; "Partial Plan for the Development of the Old Town of Barcelona").

Also in the early years of the century the slopes of Tibidabo were urbanized, with a wide avenue linking the avenue of San Gervasio with the mountain, which was occupied by single-family houses in the style of the English garden cities. For transportation, a tramway was installed on the avenue and a funicular to ascend to the top of the mountain (1901), where the Tibidabo Amusement Park was located. In 1906, the Vallvidrera funicular was also opened.

During the first years of the century the port was enlarged, with a project elaborated by Julio Valdés and carried out between 1905 and 1912: the eastern dock was extended and a counter dock and the inner docks were built. These works gave the port practically its current physiognomy, except for the construction of the south dock and the inner dock in 1965.

The turn of the century brought the general electrification of the city, both public and private. In 1911 the company Barcelona Traction Light and Power -better known as La Canadiense- was founded, which was committed to the use of the hydraulic resources of the Pyrenees, building reservoirs in Tremp (1915) and Camarassa (1920). It also built the Fígols and Sant Adrià de Besòs thermal power stations. Thanks to electrification, Barcelona began to stand out in sectors such as metallurgy, chemistry and automobiles, consolidating itself as an industrial and commercial center.

Vespasian type urinal, crossing of Pelayo street with Plaça de Catalunya

During these years the tramway network was extended, thanks to companies such as Les Tramways de Barcelone Société Anonyme. The expansion of the city with the aggregation of the adjoining municipalities increasingly required a wide and fast transport network, whose progress was favored by the electrification of the streetcars, a fact that also lowered their cost and allowed the service to become more popular: from seven million passengers in 1900 it went to 17 million in 1914.

At the beginning of the century the first buses also appeared: in 1906 the first line was created between Plaça de Catalunya and Plaça de Trilla, in Gràcia, operated by the company La Catalana, with five Brillié-Schneider cars. The service was suppressed in 1908 due to protests from the tramway companies, for which it was clear competition, but in 1916 some suburban lines appeared, running between Barcelona and Sant Just Desvern, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Hospitalet, Badalona, El Prat, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Gavà and Sant Climent de Llobregat. In 1922, city buses were reestablished, in charge of the Compañía General de Autobuses de Barcelona (General Bus Company of Barcelona, CGA), which was later absorbed by Tranvías de Barcelona, (Tramways of Barcelona) which went on to operate both transports.

In the 1920s, urban transport was improved with the construction of the Barcelona Metro. Work began in 1920 with the installation of two lines: line 3 (Lesseps-Liceo), inaugurated in 1924, and line 1 (Cataluña-Bordeta), put into service in 1926. The network was progressively expanded, and today Barcelona has 12 lines. Initially it was operated by three companies: Gran Metropolitano de Barcelona (L3), Metropolitano Transversal (L1) and Ferrocarril de Sarrià a Barcelona (now Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya); the first two merged in 1957 into the company Ferrocarril Metropolitano de Barcelona, which together with the bus company Transportes de Barcelona formed in 1979 the company Transportes Metropolitanos de Barcelona (TMB).

It should also be noted that during the first decades of the century, public schooling was greatly boosted, thanks above all to the initiative of the City Council, the Provincial Deputation and the Commonwealth of Catalonia. In 1922, the City Council created the Patronat Escolar, which promoted secular, bilingual education and pedagogical renovation, and promoted an ambitious plan of school buildings, including those built in noucentista style by Josep Goday (Ramon Llull, Collaso i Gil, Lluís Vives, Milà i Fontanals, Baixeras and Pere Vila schools). After the Civil War, public education was taken over by the central government, until the arrival of democracy, when the competences were transferred to the Generalitat.

In these years, increasing importance was also given to the question of green spaces, which was raised in 1926 by Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí, director of the Parks and Gardens Service of Barcelona: with the text El problema de los espacios libres (The problem of open spaces), presented at the XI Congreso Nacional de Arquitectos (XI National Congress of Architects), he proposed the placement of a series of green spaces in the form of concentric semicircles between the Besòs and Llobregat rivers, all along the Collserola mountain range, with small enclaves in the inner part of the city in the style of the London squares. He proposed four levels for the city: interior parks, among which would be the Citadel and Montjuïc, as well as three smaller ones (Letamendi, Sagrada Família and Glòries); suburban parks, among which would be the Hippodrome, Turó Park, Turó Gil, Font del Racó, Vallcarca, Guinardó and Park Güell; exterior parks (Llobregat, Pedralbes, Vallvidrera, Tibidabo, Sant Medir, Horta and Besòs); and the Collserola nature reserve. Rubió's project was not executed, except in small portions, but little by little the city was gaining green land: from 1910 to 1924 it went from 72 ha to 450 ha.

In 1929 the International Exposition was held in Montjuïc. 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. One of the main architects of the project was Josep Puig i Cadafalch, and it was one of the main test beds of noucentisme, the successor style to modernisme. The Exposition took place from 19 May 1929 to 15 January 1930, over an area of 116 ha, and cost 180 million pesetas.

On the occasion of the Exposition, a large part of the Montjuic mountain was landscaped, with a project by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier and Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí, who created an ensemble of marked Mediterranean character and classicist taste: the Laribal, Miramar and Greek Theater gardens were thus created.

Finally, the city's communications were improved, with the construction in the 1920s of the Prat Airport, the renovation of the France Station, the improvement of connections with the suburbs, the elimination of level crossings within the city, the burying of the train tracks in the urban interior -in streets such as Aragó, Balmes and Via Augusta- and the electrification of public streetcars. A funicular railway was also built to reach the top of the mountain -with a second section to ascend to the castle which was replaced by a cable car in 1970-, as well as a cable car to access the mountain from the port of Barcelona, a work by Carles Buïgas that was inaugurated in 1931 due to a delay in the works.

All these public works led to a strong demand for employment, causing a large increase in immigration to Barcelona from all parts of Spain. This increase in population led to the construction of several working-class neighborhoods of "cheap houses", such as the Eduardo Aunós group in Montjuic (now disappeared), the Ramon Albó group in Horta (now Can Peguera) and the Milans del Bosch (now Bon Pastor) and Baró de Viver groups in Besós. 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. In 1930 there were about 15,000 barracks in Barcelona, mainly in Sant Andreu, Montjuïc mountain and the beaches of Barceloneta and Poblenou, where neighborhoods such as Pequín, La Perona and Somorrostro are still remembered.

In 1929, the first traffic lights were installed to regulate vehicular traffic: the first was located at the intersection of Balmes and Provenza streets, and by the end of the year there were ten operating throughout the city, regulated by agents of the Guardia Urbana. The Civil War meant a halt in the installation of traffic lights, which was reactivated in the 1950s. The first synchronization took place in 1958, in Via Laietana. In 1984 the Traffic Control Center was opened, which in 2004 controlled 1,500 traffic light crossings.

Second Republic and the Macià Plan

Comarques division of Catalonia

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. In 1932 the autonomous government of Catalonia, the Generalitat, commissioned the brothers Nicolau and Santiago Rubió i Tudurí to develop a zoning project for the Catalan territory ( Regional Planning), which would be the first attempt at joint planning of all the lands of the Principality. The project included a region of Barcelona, which included the plain of the city, the Baix Llobregat and the group of towns around the Tibidabo mountain. The Regional Plan included all the considerations about the territory, both urban and natural, as well as in aspects such as agriculture and livestock, mining, industry, tourism, health and culture.

Another territorial structuring project was carried out in 1936, the Territorial Division of Catalonia, based on a work commissioned by the Generalitat in 1932 to Pau Vila. The project sought a spatial organization based on administrative public services, which resulted in a division into 9 regions and 38 comarques. Barcelona became the capital of the Barcelonès comarca, which included Hospitalet de Llobregat, Badalona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Sant Adrià de Besòs. At that time, Catalonia had an area of 32 049 km², 2 920 748 inhabitants and 1070 municipalities.

The Plan presented Barcelona as a political and administrative capital, with a working-class and functional character, which would be structured in different areas: a residential zone, a financial and industrial zone, a civic and service zone, and a recreational zone, which included parks and gardens and beaches; connectiobs, communications and transport were also studied in detail. The backbone would be the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, a 600 m wide strip that would run from the Llobregat to the Besòs. The Meridiana and Paral·lel avenues were also promoted, which would converge at the port, where a or business center would be located, moving the port facilities to the Zona Franca. For the residential area, they proposed the creation of 400 x 400 m modules -equivalent to nine blocks of the Eixample- with large housing complexes and social facilities. The recreational area was conceived through green spaces located in these residential modules and in a large strip of land in the coastal area, between Barceloneta and Poblenou, as well as the creation of a vast complex for leisure called Ciutat de Repòs i Vacances (Rest and Vacation City), which would be located on the beaches of Viladecans, Gavà and Castelldefels.

Also on the initiative of GATCPAC, the Pla de Sanejament del Casc Antic (Old Town Sanitation Plan) (1935-1937), which provided for the demolition of blocks considered unhealthy, a sponging of urban space and the creation of hygienic facilities, all supported by a strong public intervention, a fact that favored the decree in 1937, in the course of the Civil War, the municipalization of urban property.

The GATCPAC also developed a workers' housing plan inspired by Le Corbusier's model of building à rédent, which was embodied in the Bloc house (1932-1936, Josep Lluís Sert, Josep Torres Clavé and Joan Baptista Subirana), an S-shaped housing complex of long, narrow blocks with a two-bay metal structure, with access to the dwellings through covered corridors. The outbreak of the Civil War cut short the dissemination of this project.

In the 1930s the first pedestrian road signs appeared: the first ones were vertical, consisting of a white oval plate on a pole with the inscription "pedestrian crossing"; later, horizontal signs were placed, in the form of 10 x 30 cm metal plates, with a rough texture, placed on the asphalt in such a way that their protruding bands made cars slow down.

Franco's dictatorship and the Comarcal Plan

The years of the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) were characterized by urban development, which consisted of the unbridled construction of cheap housing, mostly subsidized housing, to absorb immigration from the rest of Spain. In two decades it went from 1,280,179 inhabitants in 1950 to 1,745,142 in 1970. However, although subsidized housing was encouraged, this did not stop speculation. New housing was developed mostly on the periphery of the city -an area of about 2500 ha, twice the size of the Eixample-, with three main models: sub urban sprawl neighborhoods, marginal or self-construction urbanization neighborhoods, and mass housing estates. The construction of housing was carried out, in many cases, without prior urban planning, and using cheap materials that, over the years, would cause various problems such as aluminosis. The construction fever caused the creation or expansion of new neighborhoods, such as El Carmel, Nou Barris, El Guinardó, Vall d'Hebron, La Sagrera, El Clot or El Poblenou. The growth of the suburbs caused the uninterrupted connection with the neighboring municipalities ( Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Badalona, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Esplugues de Llobregat), which in turn grew enormously, a fact that led Mayor Porcioles to coin the concept of the "Great Barcelona."

Real estate speculation was favored by the reform of the Municipal Ordinances carried out in 1942, which increased the height of buildings in relation to the width of the streets: in streets between 20 and 30 m (average width of the Eixample), heights of up to 24.40 m were allowed, equivalent to a first floor and six floors, while in streets over 30 m the height could reach 27.45 m (seven floors). This increase in buildability caused notable differences between buildings constructed at different times, and led to the presence of numerous party walls that disfigured the urban space, a problem that the city still suffers from despite several projects to remedy it, such as the Barcelona posa't guapa (Barcelona, make yourself pretty) campaign.

The post-war urban renewal was led by the head of urban planning of the new authorities, Pedro Bidagor, who in 1945 promoted the creation of the Barcelona Provincial Planning Commission, responsible for drawing up a planning project for the city and its surroundings. 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. The Plan was accompanied by a legislative change, the Land and Urban Planning Law of 1956, which sought to bring rationality to urban development, although it encountered numerous difficulties in its application. The project differentiated between zones of urban expansion, suburban or garden cities, applying a polarized distribution of the territory; thus, in Barcelona it identified three zones as areas of growth: Levante, Poniente and Diagonal Norte. It also reserved large areas for infrastructure, facilities and green spaces; among the latter, it emphasized the enclosure of the Collserola mountain range as a large central metropolitan park.

Although it was not carried out in its entirety, various "partial plans" emerged from its initial approach, most of which yielded to the pressures of the land owners and tended towards the requalification of land: a 1971 study calculated a 1.8 multiplication of the population density of the partial plans with respect to the Comarcal of 1953. The most relevant were those referring to the two ends of the Diagonal avenue, east and west: in the first the new neighborhoods of La Verneda and Besòs were created, while in the second the Zona Universitaria was projected and the neighborhoods of Les Corts and Collblanc were enlarged.

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).

During these years, automobile traffic increased considerably, which led to the improvement of the city's road network: Meridiana Avenue was opened, the First Ring Road ( Ronda del Mig) was built and the Second Ring Road was planned, the construction of subway parking lots was started and the freeway network was extended thanks to the 1962 arterial network project, with a set of radial highways starting from Barcelona in several axes (Vallès, Llobregat, Maresme). The opening of three tunnels to cross the Collserola mountain range, at Vallvidrera, Tibidabo and Horta, was also proposed, of which only the first one was built, of which only the first phase was built between 1969 and 1976 and the second between 1982 and 1991; the Rovira tunnel was also built between 1983 and 1987, linking El Guinardó with El Carmel, which was supposed to link the Horta tunnel with the center of the city.

In transportation, streetcars were replaced by buses, and the metro network was expanded; in 1941 trolleybuses appeared, which disappeared in 1968. The water supply was also improved with the contribution coming from the Ter River, natural gas was introduced, and the electrical and telephone networks were renewed.

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 complex, of 16.5 ha, included a complex of 3,000 homes, 300 commercial premises, a church (parish of San Pío X) and various school, sports and cultural services and facilities, with alternating open and closed blocks. In the rest of the city, several renovations were also carried out, such as the opening of the avenues of Príncipe de Asturias (now Riera de Cassoles) and Infanta Carlota (now Josep Tarradellas); a monumental fountain was placed at the intersection of Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes and Passeig de Gràcia, the work of Josep Soteras; and Calvo Sotelo square -currently Francesc Macià - was landscaped, with a project by Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí.

In 1957 the first section of the Paseo Marítimo was opened, an idea that had emerged in the 1920s but had not yet been developed, with a project by Enric Giralt i Ortet. On the other hand, the housing deficit to accommodate the new immigration led to the enactment of the Social Urgency Plan of 1958, which led to the construction of large blocks of social housing in neighborhoods on the periphery, such as La Verneda, Torre Llobeta, La Trinitat and Verdum.

Zona Franca of Barcelona.

The Zona Franca, an industrial sector located between the mountain of Montjuic, the port and the Llobregat, was also established at that time. 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. In addition to the industrial area itself, several residential neighborhoods were located in the sector, such as Casa Antúnez, Can Clos, La Vinya and Polvorín. In 1967, Mercabarna, a central wholesale food market that supplies the entire city, was established in the area. In 1993 the Zona d'Actividades Logísticas (Logistics Activities Zone) (ZAL), dedicated to post-production and pre-commercial activities, was also created in the area.

Between 1957 and 1973, Josep Maria de Porcioles was mayor, a long term of office known as the "Porcioles era", which stood out in urban planning for its speculative rampage, favored by the Municipal Charter of 1960, which granted the City Council broad powers in many areas, including urban planning. Porcioles created the Municipal Housing Board, whose developments included the creation of large housing estates, such as Montbau (1958-1961), Southwest Besòs (1959-1960) and Canyelles (1974). Some of the urban development actions of this period were positive, such as the covering of Aragón street, the extension of the Gran Vía towards the Maresme, the adaptation of the seafront of Montjuic or the Barceloneta promenade; however, the speculative rampage of large real estate operations generated popular discontent that resulted in the so-called "urban social movements", which combined the discomfort generated by the degradation of the urban periphery with political protest against the Franco regime. 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.

Canyelles housing estate, the last neighborhood built during the Franco regime and an example of "vertical shantyism".[194]

Despite the rise of developmentalism, there were some attempts at urban reorganization, such as the Master Plan for the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (1966), which sought to make profitability and urban construction compatible, although its guiding character did not lead to practical realization; and the so-called Plan Barcelona 2000 (1970), a somewhat utopian attempt to establish criteria for the future city, where the importance given to infrastructure predominates, while a realistic commitment was made to the disorderly nature of urban growth. In the same 1970 a project for a Universal Exposition in 1982 emerged, which foresaw the opening of large avenues in the city, among them a vertical axis that would link Plaza de España with Vallès through the Vallvidrera tunnel, and a Gran Vía Norte formed with Josep Tarradellas street and the Travessera de Gràcia extended to Santa Coloma; all this was not finally realized. In 1969 the Vilalta Plan for the construction of treatment plants for the treatment of the city's wastewater was also approved.

Finally, during the dictatorship the actions in green spaces focused more on the maintenance and restoration of existing areas than on the creation of new spaces. In 1940 Lluís Riudor, the initiator of landscaping in Catalonia, was put in charge of Parks and Gardens. His actions included the Austria Garden -located in the Park Güell enclosure-, the Monterols Park, the Cervantes Park, and various interventions in the Montjuïc mountain aimed at eliminating shantytowns, a project continued by his successor, Joaquim Casamor, with the creation of several thematic gardens, such as the Mossèn Costa i Llobera gardens, specialized in cacti and succulents, and the Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer gardens, dedicated to aquatic, bulbous and rhizomatous plants. 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.

Municipal actions in those years focused on reconstruction versus expansion, on public versus private initiative. Against the vision of the city as a unitary entity, the concept of the sum of realities was opposed, prioritizing attention to local needs. It sought to palliate both quantitative and qualitative deficits, in which each intervention in public space served as an engine of urban regeneration, compensating the peripheries with a "monumentalization" of their environment.

One of the factors driving urban change was industrial restructuring, promoted by the Plan for the reindustrialization of the center of Barcelona, which resulted in the creation of an Zona d'Urgent Reindustrialització (Urgent Reindustrialization Zone) (ZUR). The new industrial development was based on factors such as R&D, and on the commitment to new technologies.

The new urban planning was embodied in the General Metropolitan Urban Development Plan (1976), drafted by Joan Antoni Solans, an attempt to curb speculation and rehabilitate the most degraded urban spaces, placing special emphasis on social, welfare and cultural facilities. To this end, the Metropolitan Corporation of Barcelona was created, which included the capital and 26 surrounding municipalities. 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. One of the main tools for these interventions would be the Plans Especials de Reforma Interior (Special Plans of Interior Renovations) (PERI).

However, the ambitious nature of the project, which reserved numerous areas for green spaces and intended to requalify others with a high population density, provoked countless lawsuits and claims, both from individuals and landowners, which delayed its execution and eventually left the project practically inoperative, a fact that was materialized with the dissolution of the Metropolitan Corporation in 1985 by the Generalitat de Catalunya. Even so, its general guidelines have marked the urban planning actions of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century.

Between 1983 and 1989 the concept of "areas of new centrality" was developed, in search of a more polycentric and better connected city. The aim was to decongest the center by promoting various sectors of the urban periphery, which should regenerate low-quality urban fabrics thanks to their intrinsic morphological qualities. Twelve areas were delimited: RENFE-Meridiana, Diagonal-Sarrià, Tarragona street, Cerdà square, Port Vell, Glòries square, Diagonal-Prim (future Fòrum area), Sant Andreu-Sagrera and four related to the Olympic Games: Montjuic, Diagonal-Zona Universitària, Vall d'Hebron and Carles I-Avinguda Icària (future Olympic Village).

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. Policies to promote affordable housing were also carried out, and in Eixample the recovery of the block courtyards as green areas or public services was sought.

In 1988 the Pla Especial de Clavegueram de Barcelona (Special Sewerage Plan of Barcelona) (PECB) was approved, which remodeled the network of coastal sewers, eliminating practically half of the city's flood areas, while promoting the construction of breakwaters, which allowed the recovery of the city's beaches. The same purpose was served by the 1997 Pla Especial de Clavegueram de Barcelona (Special Sewerage Plan for Barcelona) (PECLAB), which boosted stormwater regulation reservoirs to prevent flooding.

The arrival of democracy favored the creation of new green areas in the city. At this time gardening was closely linked to urban planning, with a concept that combined aesthetics with functionality, as well as recreational aspects, sports facilities and services for certain groups such as children or the elderly, as well as areas for dogs. Numerous parks were converted from former municipal facilities, such as the Joan Miró park, built between 1980 and 1982 on the site of the former central slaughterhouse of Barcelona; or in industrial areas (Espanya Industrial park, 1981-1985; Pegaso park, 1982-1986; Clot park, 1982-1986) or former railway facilities (Sant Martí park, 1985; Estació del Nord park, 1988). The Creueta del Coll park (1981-1987), a work of the Martorell-Bohigas-Mackay team, was also established on the site of an old quarry.

Another of Barcelona's profound transformations came on the occasion of the 1992 Olympic Games. The event involved the remodeling of part of the mountain of Montjuïc, where the so-called Olympic Ring (1985-1992), designed by Carles Buxadé, Joan Margarit, Federico Correa and Alfons Milà, a large enclosure located between the Olympic Stadium Lluís Companys and the Plaça d'Europa, which houses several sports facilities including the Palau Sant Jordi, was located.

To accommodate the athletes, a new neighborhood was built, the Poblenou Olympic Village (1985-1992), with a general layout of the Martorell-Bohigas-Mackay-Puigdomènech team. The planning of the Olympic Village was complex, and several aspects had to be adapted: the coastal railroad had to be buried; sewage treatment plants had to be built and the wastewater that had previously gone directly into the sea had to be channeled; a new port ( Olympic Port) was built; new beaches were established and regenerated; and new road and transport axes were laid out, such as Avinguda d'Icària. Several facilities were also installed in the area, such as the Telephone Exchange (1989-1992, Jaume Bach and Gabriel Mora) and the Meteorology Center (1990-1992, Álvaro Siza). On the other hand, the construction of two large skyscrapers ( Hotel Arts and Torre Mapfre) changed the physiognomy of Barcelona.

The Hotel Arts and the Torre Mapfre, the two skyscrapers of the Olympic Village that changed the physiognomy of Barcelona.

On the occasion of the Games, the Old port ( Port Vell) was also remodeled, with a project by Jordi Henrich and Olga Tarrasó. The new space was dedicated to leisure, with the creation of the Maremagnum leisure center, connected to land by the Rambla de Mar, a pivoting bridge designed by Helio Piñón and Albert Viaplana. For the event a Coastal Plan was also instituted with a view to the regeneration of the city's beaches, which had been quite eroded until then, and which were totally renovated and won for the enjoyment of the citizens. Beaches such as Sant Sebastià, Barceloneta, Nova Icària, Bogatell, Mar Bella and Nova Mar Bella were cleaned and filled with sand from the seabed, sewage treatment plants were built on the Besòs and Llobregat rivers and underwater reefs were placed to favor flora and fauna. On the other hand, the Llobregat River was diverted in its final stretch 2.5 km to the south, thus allowing the port to be extended in that direction.

Another urban planning action was in the Raval neighborhood, which was remodeled with a project by Jaume Artigues and Pere Cabrera, which consisted of the opening of the Rambla del Raval and the adequacy of the surroundings of the Plaça dels Àngels as a cultural center, where the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (1990-1993) and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (1987-1996) were located.

It should also be noted that the road infrastructure of the city was significantly expanded for the Games, especially with the creation of the ring roads, arranged as a ring road around the entire urban perimeter. 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. There are currently three ring roads: the Ronda de Dalt, the Ronda del Mig and the Ronda del Litoral; the first two ring roads circumvent Barcelona, while the Ronda del Mig (of the "middle") crosses the city and receives different names depending on the section (Passeig de la Zona Franca, Carrer de Badal, Rambla del Brasil, Gran Via de Carles III, Ronda del General Mitre, Travesera de Dalt and Ronda del Guinardó).

On the other hand, there was a campaign to restore facades and monuments and to adapt dividing walls, called Barcelona posa't guapa (Barcelona make yourself pretty) (1986-1992), directed by Josep Emili Hernández-Cros, from the Heritage area of the City Council.

The celebration of the Games was a challenge for the urban planning of the city, and was a platform for a determined strategic urban planning action, with a perfect harmony between social and economic agents, which led to a new projection of the city both nationally and internationally, and led to talk of a "Barcelona model" as an integrative project of urban reform that was exportable to other cities.

The last years of the century were marked by the search for a more sustainable urban planning based on ecological criteria. This new awareness was reflected in the search for public spaces adapted to the environment and designed for the residents, with special emphasis on community facilities and services. These criteria were defined in particular at the Sustainable Barcelona Civic Forum, held in 1998. One of the main achievements during these years in the interests of sustainability has been the commitment to the bicycle as a more environmentally friendly means of transport: in 1993 the first bicycle path was installed on Avinguda Diagonal, on a 3 km stretch; since then the space allocated to bicycles has not stopped increasing, the use of which has also been favored by the creation in 2007 of a municipal bicycle rental company (Bicing), with several stopping points throughout the city.

The turn of the century also saw an increase in multi-municipal projects, especially in terms of infrastructure and transport, such as the expansion of the port and the airport, the route of the AVE and the Plan for public transport, or the projects for the rehabilitation of the Llobregat and Besós deltas. The Pla Director d'Infraestructures (Infrastructure Master Plan) (PDI) marked the expansion and improvement of public transport, with a Metro network covering the entire metropolitan area, the reintroduction of the tramway at both ends of the Diagonal ( Baix Llobregat and Besòs), and the improvement of the bus network.

One of the first urban development projects of the new millennium was the creation of the 22@ district, thanks to a modification of the General Metropolitan Plan in 2000. Its objective is the reformulation of the industrial land in the El Poblenou neighborhood, a traditionally industrial sector that fell into decline at the end of the 20th century due to the relocation of most companies to land outside the city. The preservation of the productive business fabric of the area was then promoted, focusing on companies dedicated to new technologies, in line with the private sector and the day-to-day activities of the area. The area of action is 115 ha, which made it one of the areas of greatest urban renewal in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century.

One of the most outstanding events of the new millennium was the celebration of the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures, which led to new urban changes in the city: the entire Besòs area, until then populated by old disused factories, was recovered, the entire Poblenou neighborhood was regenerated and the new Diagonal Mar neighborhood was built, while the city was provided with new parks and spaces for the leisure of the citizens. The site was designed by Elías Torres and José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, with a 16-hectare multipurpose esplanade culminating at one end with a large photovoltaic panel, which became one of the emblems of the event.

The urban planning of the new millennium has reinforced the polynuclear grid structure promoted since the 1990s, which has favored the emergence of new urban centers such as the Fòrum, 22@ and La Sagrera. Currently the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes is being remodeled, an important road axis where the undergrounding of automobile traffic is planned and the recovery of the land for public use.

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. The port and El Prat airport have also been expanded, with the aim of making Barcelona the logistics hub of southern Europe. The metro network has been expanded, with the extension of several lines ( 3 and 5), and the creation of some new ones ( 9, 10 and 11), some of them fully automated. In 2012, an orthogonal rearrangement of the bus network was initiated, to create a bus rapid transit network. The construction of a fourth ring road is also planned to improve communications in the metropolitan area, as well as the connection between the Baix Llobregat and Besòs streetcars through Avinguda Diagonal.

In recent years, numerous infrastructures have been installed in the city to facilitate pedestrian transit in high and inaccessible areas, mainly elevators and escalators. 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. As a result, the Generalitat declared El Carmel as an Àrea Extraordinària de Rehabilitació Integral (Extraordinary Area of Integral Rehabilitation) (AERI), with a program of intervention and promotion of public works, rehabilitation of buildings and improvement of public facilities.

In terms of green spaces, the most recent projects include: the Central Park of Nou Barris (1997-2007), by Carme Fiol and Andreu Arriola, which in 2007 received the International Urban Landscape Award architecture prize in Frankfurt ( Germany); the Diagonal Mar Park (1999-2002), by Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue, a park of modern design where the presence of water stands out; and the Poblenou Center Park (2008), by Jean Nouvel, divided into various thematic spaces, with an avant-garde design. In 2016, the first large park for dogs was opened, a 700 m² space located in the Nou Barris district, which has a watering hole and play elements for pets.

A new impetus for urban planning began in 2015 with the start of the drafting of the new Pla Director Urbanístic (Urban Master Plan) (PDU) for the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, scheduled for approval in 2021. The PDU is intended to complement the 1976 General Metropolitan Plan in order to promote the urban and social transformation of the metropolitan area of the Catalan capital, made up of 36 municipalities and 3.5 million inhabitants. The objectives of the new plan include: classifying metropolitan land and establishing criteria for urbanization, establishing building regulations, defining areas for urban transformation and their sustainable development, preserving the environment, respecting forest and agricultural land, and guaranteeing proper mobility of people and transport. According to Ramon Torra, manager of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, "the PDU has two conceptual objectives: the definition of a metropolitan urban planning model that integrates the current diversity, is ecologically sustainable, economically efficient and socially cohesive; and the methods and tools necessary to carry it out."

In September 2016, a pilot test was initiated for the adaptation of certain sets of city blocks as "superblocks", intermediate spaces between the block and the neighborhood, with restricted vehicle traffic to enhance pedestrian traffic, bicycle circulation and public transport, also gaining spaces for leisure and public facilities. The first test was carried out on a set of nine blocks in Poblenou, where vertical and horizontal signs were changed to mark the area. Traffic is prohibited in a straight line, so that vehicles can only turn at intersections, and is limited to 10 km/h. This leaves free the interior space between blocks, which will be used for public spaces, for which an ideas competition has been organized among architecture students.

After this pilot test, a new phase of creating superblocks in the Eixample district began in 2020, with the aim of establishing 42 new green axes and squares within ten years, until 2030. The first axis of action would be Consell de Cent street, where the creation of four new agoras in Rocafort, Borrell, Enric Granados and Girona is planned. According to the forecast, one out of every three streets in the Eixample would give priority to pedestrianization and public and sustainable transport. In contrast to the pilot tests, this time it will be done by axes instead of blocks, with the subsequent creation of new plazas on intersecting axes. Private traffic will be restricted to residents, with a maximum speed of 10 km/h. A budget of 37.8 million euros is foreseen for these actions. Work is scheduled to start in 2022. These changes seek to comply with the objetivos de desarrollo sostenible (Sustainable Development Goals) (SDGs) promoted by the United Nations Organization.

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in December 2019 worldwide led to various urban planning changes in the city, some temporary and others that became permanent. On 14 March 2020 the Spanish government decreed the entry into force of the state of alarm throughout the national territory, with the obligation of citizens to confine themselves to their homes except for essential services. To keep their distance in order to avoid contagion, numerous spaces were set aside for pedestrians to pass through, at the expense of the roadways for vehicular traffic. These areas were marked with colored paint according to their use: blue for bicycles and yellow for pedestrians, together with the use of temporary elements such as bollards and concrete blocks. In many of these spaces, areas were set up as terraces for bars and restaurants, so that customers could drink outdoors, a space more conducive to avoiding contagion. These measures, initially conceived with an ephemeral character, were defined by the councilor of Urbanism, Janet Sanz, as "an example of tactical urbanism." Over time, many of these temporary changes became permanent, such as the spaces enabled for terraces of hospitality establishments, which were regulated in September 2021 by a new ordinance that established new criteria for permanent street furniture, specifically seven new platform models to integrate the elements of such establishments (tables, chairs, umbrellas) in the surrounding space.

1. Its full name was ^ Colonia Iulia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. (Barral i Altet et al. 2000, p. 44)

2. ^ La Boquería market was built on the site of the Carmelite convent of San José, on La Rambla; the Liceu on the site of the convent of Nostr Senyora de la Bonaventura of the Trinitarians; the Plaça Reial on the site of the convent of the Caputxins of Santa Madrona; the Santa Caterina market replaced the convent of the same name; and the Plaça del Duc de Medinaceli was located on the site left by the convent of Sant Francesc. On the other hand, the Franciscan convent-college of Sant Buenaventura gave way to the Hotel Oriente; and on the convent-college of the Carmelites Calçats de Sant Àngel Màrtir a barracks of the Guardia Urbana de Barcelona was built. (Barral i Altet et al. 2000, p. XIV)

3. During the nineteenth century two aggregations took place: in 1836 the ^ Hostafrancs neighborhood, belonging to Sants; and in 1848, some land in Sant Martí de Provençals where the cemetery of Poblenou was located. (AA. VV. 2006, p. 35)

4. Examples of this were: the ^ Padellàs House (15th-16th centuries), moved to the Plaça del Rei, where it now houses the Museum of the History of Barcelona; and the Baroque facade of the church of Santa Marta (1737-1747), installed in one of the pavilions of the Hospital de la Santa Creu y Sant Pablou.

5. The B road was built partially and in different sectors: the Avinguda de les Drassanes (''Drassanes''), between the Plaça del Portal de la Pau and the Carrer Nova de la Rambla; and the Rambla del Raval, which connects with the previous one with the Carrer de Sant Olegari, and reaches the Carrer del Hospital, from which the plan foresaw a link with the Carrer de Muntaner, a section that has not been carried out. (^ AA. VV. 2006, p. 155) For its part, the C road was built between the squares Nueva and Antonio Maura, taking advantage of the spaces left by the destruction of several houses in some bombings during the Civil War, and was renamed Avenida de la Catedral in 1942. (AA. VV. 2006, p. 294)

6. At the beginning of the 20th century, the influence of ^ Ebenezer Howard's theories on the garden-city, introduced by Cebrià de Montoliu through the magazine Civitas (1911-1919), was received. However, they were not very successful in Barcelona, except in the influence exerted on the construction of cheap houses in the 1920s. (AA. VV. 2006, p. 43)

AA. VV. (1996), Enciclopèdia Catalana Bàsica (in Catalan), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia catalana

AA. VV. (1998), Art de Catalunya 3: Urbanisme, arquitectura civil i industrial (in Catalan), Barcelona: Edicions L'isard

Bahamón, Alejandro; Losantos, Àgata (2007), Barcelona. Atlas histórico de arquitectura (in Spanish), Barcelona: Parramón

Parraguez, Nicolás (2013), Modelo Barcelona de espacio público y diseño urbano. El mobiliario urbano en la cualificación del espacio público (in Spanish), Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, ISBN 978-84-7739-179-1

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The urban planning of Barcelona developed in accordance with the historical and territorial changes of the city, and in line with other defining factors of public space, such as architecture, urban infrastructure and the adaptation and maintenance of natural spaces, parks and gardens.

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Copenhagen is renowned for prioritizing bicycles over cars, showcasing a commitment to sustainable urban development. This approach has shaped a unique cityscape and culture centered around cycling. Discussion questions: 1) What are the benefits of prioritizing bicycle infrastructure in urban planning? 2) How does Copenhagen's planning impact the city's environmental footprint?

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Sustainable cities of the future will be ones where transport options other than fossil-fuel powered private vehicles are the norm. Bike-friendly Copenhagen is leading the way, as this case study explores.

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Venice: Urban Development and Cultural Preservation

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Venice: Urban Development and Cultural Preservation

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Venice's exceptional urban structure, characterized by its iconic waterways, presents a unique case of urban resilience and cultural preservation. The city's planning documents reveal a careful balance between development and heritage conservation. Discussion questions: 1) How does Venice manage to balance urban development with cultural preservation? 2) What challenges does Venice face due to its unique urban structure, and how are they addressed?

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Amsterdam's Canal System: A Planning Masterpiece

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Amsterdam's Canal System: A Planning Masterpiece

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Amsterdam's meticulous planning of its canal system not only serves its functional needs but also enhances the city's aesthetic appeal. This planning initiative significantly contributes to Amsterdam's identity as a city. Discussion questions: 1) How does the canal system influence Amsterdam's urban landscape? 2) In what ways does the canal system impact the city's economic and social life?

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Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, has more than 100 kilometers (62 mi) of ( canals), about 90 islands and 1,500 bridges. The three main canals (Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht), dug in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age, form concentric belts around the city, known as the Grachtengordel. Alongside the main canals are 1550 monumental buildings. The 17th-century canal ring area, including the Prinsengracht, Keizersgracht, Herengracht and Jordaan, were listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010, contributing to Amsterdam's fame as the " Venice of the North".

Much of the Amsterdam canal system is the successful outcome of city planning. In the early part of the 17th century, with immigration rising, a comprehensive plan was put together, calling for four main, concentric half-circles of canals with their ends resting on the IJ Bay. Known as the "grachtengordel", three of the canals are mostly for residential development (Herengracht or ''Patricians' Canal''; Keizersgracht or ''Emperor's Canal''; and Prinsengracht or ''Prince's Canal''), and a fourth, outer canal, the Singelgracht, for purposes of defense and water management. The plan also envisaged interconnecting canals along radii; a set of parallel canals in the Jordaan quarter (primarily for the transportation of goods, for example, beer); the conversion of an existing, inner perimeter canal (Singel) from a defensive purpose to residential and commercial development; and more than one hundred bridges. The defensive purpose of the Nassau/Stadhouderskade was served by moat and earthen dikes, with gates at transit points but otherwise no masonry superstructures.

Construction proceeded from west to east, across the breadth of the layout, like a gigantic windshield wiper as the historian Geert Mak calls it - not from the center outwards as a popular myth has it. Construction of the north-western sector was started in 1613 and was finished around 1625. After 1664, building in the southern sector was started, although slowly because of an economic depression.[which? ] The eastern part of the concentric canal plan, covering the area between the Amstel river and the IJ Bay, was not implemented for a long time. In the following centuries, the land went mostly for park, the Botanical garden, old age homes, theaters and other public facilities - and for waterways without much plan.

Several parts of the city and of the urban area are polders, recognizable by their postfix -meer meaning 'lake', such as Aalsmeer, Bijlmermeer, Haarlemmermeer, and Watergraafsmeer. The canals in Amsterdam are now used for tourism, recreation, houseboats, and a relatively small amount of private transport compared to the main modes of walking, light rail, subway, and bicycle. Most of the canals are paralleled by automobile roads on both sides.

Through the mid-19th century, the water in the canals was stagnant and unsanitary, full of garbage, dead fish and feces. To remedy this, in 1879 the steam-powered pump station Gemaal Zeeburg was built to flush the canals out using water from Zuiderzee. Conditions were further improved in 1935 when the inner city was first connected to the sewer system, though the Grachtengordel was not fully connected until 1987. Up until this point, houses released wastewater into the canal. Further attempts to improve the water quality in recent years have included legislation prohibiting houseboats from releasing waste water into the canals. As of 2018, all houseboats are required to be connected to the sewage system, though this is not expected to be achieved until 2021. As of August 2018, more than 50 house boats were still releasing their sewage into the canals.

Another source of water pollution, particular to Dutch transport patterns, is the bicycle. Each year, between 12,000 and 15,000 bicycles are pulled out of the canals in what is colloquially referred to as 'bike fishing' ( fietsen vissen).

While swimming in the canals is not officially encouraged, locals now swim each year in a number of locations around the city. Furthermore, since 2012, the Amsterdam City Swim has been held yearly to raise money for ALS research. In it, volunteers swim from Nieuwe Herengracht to Keizersgracht. However, the swimming part of the event was canceled in 2018 due to high levels of E. coli found in the water due to heavy rains the preceding weeks which overloaded the sewer system.

Inward to outward, the canals are as follows:

Singel encircled the medieval city of Amsterdam. It served as a moat around the city from 1480 until 1585, when Amsterdam expanded beyond Singel. The canal runs from the IJ Bay, near Central Station, to the Muntplein square, where it meets the Amstel river. It is now the inner-most canal in Amsterdam's semicircular ring of canals. The canal should not be confused with Singelgracht canal, which became the outer limit of the city during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th Century.

Herengracht (Patricians' Canal or Lords' Canal) is the first of the three major canals in the city centre of Amsterdam. The canal is named after the heren regeerders who governed the city in the 16th and 17th century. The most fashionable part is called the Golden Bend, with many double wide mansions, inner gardens and coach houses on Keizersgracht. Samuel Sarphati (1813-1868) lived at the house at number 598 and Peter the Great stayed at the house at number 527 during his second visit to Amsterdam.

Keizersgracht (literal English translation: Emperor's Canal) is the second and widest of the three major canals in the city centre of Amsterdam, in between Herengracht and Prinsengracht. It is named after Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor.[unreliable source? ] John Adams stayed at the house at number 529, Heinrich Schliemann worked for almost three years at number 71, Daniel Fahrenheit at 463-465, and during his first visit to Amsterdam (1693), Peter the Great stayed at the house at number 317.

The Homomonument (Gay Monument) faces the Keizersgracht.

Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal) is the fourth and the longest of the main canals in Amsterdam. It is named after the Prince of Orange. Most of the canal houses along it were built during the Dutch Golden Age of the United Provinces. The bridges over the Prinsengracht canal connect with the streets in the Jordaan in the West and the Weteringbuurt on the East side.

Notable buildings along Prinsengracht include the Noorderkerk (Northern Church), the Noordermarkt (Northern Market), Anne Frank House, and the Westerkerk (Western Church, Amsterdam's tallest church).

Annually, the Prinsengrachtconcert is held on a pontoon in the canal in front of Hotel Pulitzer.

Zwanenburgwal is a canal and street in the center of Amsterdam. The painter Rembrandt and philosopher Spinoza lived here. In 2006 it was voted one of the most beautiful streets in Amsterdam by readers of , a local daily newspaper.

Zwanenburgwal flows from Sint Antoniessluis sluice gate (between the streets Sint Antoniesbreestraat and Jodenbreestraat) to the Amstel river. The canal was originally named Verversgracht ("dyers' canal"), after the textile industry that once dominated this part of town. Dyed textiles were hung to dry along the canal.

Brouwersgracht is a canal in the city centre of Amsterdam and is part of the canal belt connecting the Singel, Herengracht, Keizergracht and Prinsengracht and marks the northern border of the canal belt. The canal served as a site for ships returning from Asia with spices and silks, therefore Brouwersgracht had many warehouses and storage depots for the ships inventories. Likewise some officials of the Dutch East India Company lived here such as their cartographer (1708-1743) Isaak de Graaf. Breweries were also prevalent in the area due to the access to fresh water shipments. Today the warehouses are now apartments, some of the most expensive in Amsterdam. Houseboats also are seen in the canal. In 2007, Brouwersgracht was voted the most beautiful street in Amsterdam by readers of , a national daily newspaper.

Kloveniersburgwal is a canal running south from Nieuwmarkt to the Amstel River on the edge of the medieval city. The east side became populated in the 17th century and has a few grand mansions, like the Trippenhuis, now housing the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Kloveniersburgwal was popular with administrators at the Dutch East India Company, being close to its nerve center on Oude Hoogstraat and its warehouse.

Brantasgracht, Lamonggracht, Majanggracht and Seranggracht

These four canals are the newest in Amsterdam, constructed on Java Island in 1995, a manmade island in the IJ Harbor, north-east of the City Center. The canals are lined with modern interpretations of classic Amsterdam canal houses, which were designed by 19 young Dutch architects. Each house is 4.5 meters wide and 4 or 5 stories tall, but the designs are totally unique and are often featured in Amsterdam travel guides despite being off the beaten path of most tourists. Nine ornate metal bridges, designed by artist couple Guy Rombouts and Monika Droste, cross the canals for pedestrians and cyclists.

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Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, has more than 100 kilometers (62 mi) of ( canals), about 90 islands and 1,500 bridges. The three main canals (Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht), dug in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age, form concentric belts around the city, known as the Grachtengordel.

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The Haussmannization of Paris: Impacts on Urban Planning

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The Haussmannization of Paris: Impacts on Urban Planning

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Paris underwent a dramatic transformation in the 19th century, known as Haussmannization, which modernized the city's structure. This process revolutionized Paris's urban landscape, introducing wide boulevards and uniform building designs. Discussion questions: 1) How did Haussmannization impact Paris's urban environment? 2) What are the pros and cons of such a comprehensive urban redevelopment project?

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Napoleon III instructed Haussmann to bring air and light to the centre of the city, to unify the different neighbourhoods with boulevards, and to make the city more beautiful. The Avenue de l'Opéra, created by Haussmann, painted by Camille Pissarro (1898).

Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Prefect of Seine under Napoleon III from 1853 until 1870.

Windows and balconies of a typical Haussmannian building on Rue Soufflot.

Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works programme commissioned by French Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of medieval neighbourhoods that were deemed overcrowded and unhealthy by officials at the time; the building of wide avenues; new parks and squares; the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris; and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. Haussmann's work was met with fierce opposition, and he was finally dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870; but work on his projects continued until 1927. The street plan and distinctive appearance of the centre of Paris today are largely the result of Haussmann's renovation.

In the middle of the 19th century, the centre of Paris was viewed as overcrowded, dark, dangerous, and unhealthy. In 1845, the French social reformer Victor Considerant wrote: "Paris is an immense workshop of putrefaction, where misery, pestilence and sickness work in concert, where sunlight and air rarely penetrate. Paris is a terrible place where plants shrivel and perish, and where, of seven small infants, four die during the course of the year." The street plan on the Île de la Cité and in the neighbourhood called the "quartier des Arcis", between the Louvre and the " Hôtel de Ville" (City Hall), had changed little since the Middle Ages. The population density in these neighbourhoods was extremely high, compared with the rest of Paris; in the neighbourhood of Champs-Élysées, population density was estimated at 5,380 per square kilometre (22 per acre); in the neighbourhoods of Arcis and Saint-Avoye, located in the present Third Arrondissement, there was one inhabitant for every three square metres (32 sq ft). In 1840, a doctor described one building in the Île de la Cité where a single 5-square-metre room (54 sq ft) on the fourth floor was occupied by twenty-three people, both adults and children. In these conditions, disease spread very quickly. Cholera epidemics ravaged the city in 1832 and 1848. In the epidemic of 1848, five percent of the inhabitants of these two neighbourhoods died.

Traffic circulation was another major problem. The widest streets in these two neighborhoods were only five metres (16 feet) wide; the narrowest were one or two meters (3-7 feet) wide. Wagons, carriages and carts could barely move through the streets.

The centre of the city was also a cradle of discontent and revolution; between 1830 and 1848, seven armed uprisings and revolts had broken out in the centre of Paris, particularly along the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, around the Hôtel de Ville, and around Montagne Sainte-Geneviève on the left bank. The residents of these neighbourhoods had taken up pavement stones and blocked the narrow streets with barricades, which had to be dislodged by the army.

The urban problems of Paris had been recognized in the 18th century; Voltaire complained about the markets "established in narrow streets, showing off their filthiness, spreading infection and causing continuing disorders." He wrote that the façade of the Louvre was admirable, "but it was hidden behind buildings worthy of the Goths and Vandals." He protested that the government "invested in futilities rather than investing in public works." In 1739 he wrote to the young Frederick the Great: "I saw the fireworks which they fired off with such management; would rather they started to have a Hôtel de Ville, beautiful squares, magnificent and convenient markets, beautiful fountains, before having fireworks."[page needed ]

The 18th century architectural theorist and historian Quatremere de Quincy had proposed establishing or widening public squares in each of the neighbourhoods, expanding and developing the squares in front the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame and the church of Saint Gervais, and building a wide street to connect the Louvre with the Hôtel de Ville, the new city hall. Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux, the architect in chief of Paris, suggested paving and developing the embankments of the Seine, building monumental squares, clearing the space around landmarks, and cutting new streets. In 1794, during the French Revolution, a Commission of Artists drafted an ambitious plan to build wide avenues, including a street in a straight line from the Place de la Nation to the Louvre, where the Avenue Victoria is today, and squares with avenues radiating in different directions, largely making use of land confiscated from the church during the Revolution, but all of these projects remained on paper.

Napoleon Bonaparte also had ambitious plans for rebuilding the city. He began work on a canal to bring fresh water to the city and began work on the Rue de Rivoli, beginning at the Place de la Concorde, but was able to extend it only to the Louvre before his downfall. "If only the heavens had given me twenty more years of rule and a little leisure," he wrote while in exile on Saint Helena, "one would vainly search today for the old Paris; nothing would remain of it but vestiges."

The medieval core and plan of Paris changed little during the restoration of the monarchy through the reign of King Louis-Philippe (1830-1848). It was the Paris of the narrow and winding streets and foul sewers described in the novels of Balzac and Victor Hugo. In 1833, the new prefect of the Seine under Louis-Philippe, Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau, made modest improvements to the sanitation and circulation of the city. He constructed new sewers, though they still emptied directly into the Seine, and a better water supply system. He constructed 180 kilometres of sidewalks, a new street, rue Lobau; a new bridge over the Seine, the Pont Louis-Philippe; and cleared an open space around the Hôtel de Ville. He built a new street the length of the Île de la Cité and three additional streets across it: rue d'Arcole, rue de la Cité and rue Constantine. To access the central market at Les Halles, he built a wide new street (today's rue Rambuteau) and began work on the Boulevard Malesherbes. On the Left Bank, he built a new street, rue Soufflot, which cleared space around the Panthéon, and began work on the rue des Écoles, between the École Polytechnique and the Collège de France.

Rambuteau wanted to do more, but his budget and powers were limited. He did not have the power to easily expropriate property to build new streets, and the first law which required minimum health standards for Paris residential buildings was not passed until April 1850, under Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, then president of the French Second Republic.

King Louis-Philippe was overthrown in the February Revolution of 1848. On 10 December 1848, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte, won the first direct presidential elections ever held in France with an overwhelming 74.2 percent of the votes cast. He was elected largely because of his famous name, but also because of his promise to try to end poverty and improve the lives of ordinary people. Though he had been born in Paris, he had lived very little in the city; from the age of seven, he had lived in exile in Switzerland, England, and the United States, and for six years in prison in France for attempting to overthrow King Louis-Philippe. He had been especially impressed by London, with its wide streets, squares and large public parks. In 1852 he gave a public speech declaring: "Paris is the heart of France. Let us apply our efforts to embellishing this great city. Let us open new streets, make the working class quarters, which lack air and light, more healthy, and let the beneficial sunlight reach everywhere within our walls". As soon as he was President, he supported the building of the first subsidized housing project for workers in Paris, the Cité-Napoléon, on the rue Rochechouart. He proposed the completion of the rue de Rivoli from the Louvre to the Hôtel de Ville, completing the project begun by his uncle Napoléon Bonaparte, and he began a project which would transform the Bois de Boulogne (Boulogne Forest) into a large new public park, modelled after Hyde Park in London but much larger, on the west side of the city. He wanted both these projects to be completed before the end of his term in 1852, but became frustrated by the slow progress made by his prefect of the Seine, Jean-Jacques Berger. The prefect was unable to move the work forward on the rue de Rivoli quickly enough, and the original design for the Bois de Boulogne turned out to be a disaster; the architect, Jacques Ignace Hittorff, who had designed the Place de la Concorde for Louis-Philippe, followed Louis-Napoléon's instructions to imitate Hyde Park and designed two lakes connected by a stream for the new park, but forgot to take into account the difference of elevation between the two lakes. If they had been built, the one lake would have immediately emptied itself into the other.

At the end of 1851, shortly before Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's term expired, neither the rue de Rivoli nor the park had progressed very far. He wanted to run for re-election in 1852, but was blocked by the new Constitution, which limited him to one term. A majority of members of parliament voted to change the Constitution, but not the two-thirds majority required. Prevented from running again, Napoléon, with the help of the army, staged a coup d'état on 2 December 1851 and seized power. His opponents were arrested or exiled. The following year, on 2 December 1852, he declared himself Emperor, adopting the throne name Napoléon III.

Haussmann's renovation

The Rue de Rivoli, shown here in 1855, was the first boulevard built by Haussmann, and it served as the model for the others.

The boulevards and streets built by Napoléon III and Haussmann during the Second Empire are shown in red. They also built the Bois de Boulogne park (green area on the left), the Bois de Vincennes park containing a zoo (green area on the right), the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, the Parc Montsouris and dozens of smaller parks and squares.

Napoléon III dismissed Berger as the Prefect of the Seine and sought a more effective manager. His minister of the interior, Victor de Persigny, interviewed several candidates, and selected Georges-Eugène Haussmann, a native of Alsace and Prefect of the Gironde, who impressed Persigny with his energy, audacity, and ability to overcome or get around problems and obstacles. He became Prefect of the Seine on 22 June 1853, and on 29 June, the Emperor showed him the map of Paris and instructed Haussmann to aérer, unifier, et embellir Paris: to give it air and open space, to connect and unify the different parts of the city into one whole, and to make it more beautiful.

Haussmann went to work immediately on the first phase of the renovation desired by Napoléon III: completing the grande croisée de Paris, a great cross in the centre of Paris that would permit easier communication from east to west along the rue de Rivoli and rue Saint-Antoine, and north-south communication along two new Boulevards, Strasbourg and Sébastopol. The grand cross had been proposed by the National Convention during the Revolution, and begun by Napoléon I; Napoléon III was determined to complete it. Completion of the rue de Rivoli was given an even higher priority, because the Emperor wanted it finished before the opening of the Paris Universal Exposition of 1855, only two years away, and he wanted the project to include a new hotel, the Grand Hôtel du Louvre, the first large luxury hotel in the city, to house the Imperial guests at the Exposition.

Under the Emperor, Haussmann had greater power than any of his predecessors. In February 1851, the French Senate had simplified the laws on expropriation, giving him the authority to expropriate all the land on either side of a new street; and he did not have to report to the Parliament, only to the Emperor. The French parliament, controlled by Napoléon III, provided fifty million francs, but this was not nearly enough. Napoléon III appealed to the Péreire brothers, Émile and Isaac, two bankers who had created a new investment bank, Crédit Mobilier. The Péreire brothers organised a new company which raised 24 million francs to finance the construction of the street, in exchange for the rights to develop real estate along the route. This became a model for the building of all of Haussmann's future boulevards.

To meet the deadline, three thousand workers laboured on the new boulevard twenty-four hours a day. The rue de Rivoli was completed, and the new hotel opened in March 1855, in time to welcome guests to the Exposition. The junction was made between the rue de Rivoli and rue Saint-Antoine; in the process, Haussmann restyled the Place du Carrousel, opened up a new square, Place Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois facing the colonnade of the Louvre, and reorganized the space between the Hôtel de Ville and the place du Châtelet. Between the Hôtel de Ville and the Bastille square, he widened the rue Saint-Antoine; he was careful to save the historic Hôtel de Sully and Hôtel de Mayenne, but many other buildings, both medieval and modern, were knocked down to make room for the wider street, and several ancient, dark and narrow streets, rue de l'Arche-Marion, rue du Chevalier-le-Guet and rue des Mauvaises-Paroles, disappeared from the map.

In 1855, work began on the north-south axis, beginning with Boulevard de Strasbourg and Boulevard Sébastopol, which cut through the center of some of the most crowded neighborhoods in Paris, where the cholera epidemic had been the worst, between the rue Saint-Martin and rue Saint-Denis. "It was the gutting of old Paris," Haussmann wrote with satisfaction in his Memoires, "of the neighborhood of riots, and of barricades, from one end to the other." The Boulevard Sébastopol ended at the new Place du Châtelet; a new bridge, the Pont-au-Change, was constructed across the Seine, and crossed the island on a newly built street. On the left bank, the north-south axis was continued by the Boulevard Saint-Michel, which was cut in a straight line from the Seine to the Observatory, and then, as the rue d'Enfer, extended all the way to the rue d'Orléans. The north-south axis was completed in 1859.

The two axes crossed at the Place du Châtelet, making it the center of Haussmann's Paris. Haussmann widened the square, moved the Fontaine du Palmier, built by Napoléon I, to the center and built two new theaters, facing each other across the square; the Cirque Impérial (now the Théâtre du Châtelet) and the Théâtre Lyrique (now Théâtre de la Ville).

The tree-lined avenue de l'Impératrice (now avenue Foch) was designed by Haussmann as the grand entrance to the Bois de Boulogne.

The new avenue des Gobelins on the left bank opened a view to the Panthéon.

Haussmann's Boulevard Saint-Germain was designed as the main east-west axis of the left bank.

The Île de la Cité transformed by Haussmann: new transverse streets (red), public spaces (light blue) and buildings (dark blue).

In the first phase of his renovation Haussmann constructed 9,467 metres (6 miles) of new boulevards, at a net cost of 278 million francs. The official parliamentary report of 1859 found that it had "brought air, light and healthiness and procured easier circulation in a labyrinth that was constantly blocked and impenetrable, where streets were winding, narrow, and dark." It had employed thousands of workers, and most Parisians were pleased by the results. His second phase, approved by the Emperor and parliament in 1858 and begun in 1859, was much more ambitious. He intended to build a network of wide boulevards to connect the interior of Paris with the ring of grand boulevards built by Louis XVIII during the restoration, and to the new railroad stations which Napoleon III considered the real gates of the city. He planned to construct 26,294 metres (16 miles) of new avenues and streets, at a cost of 180 million francs. Haussmann's plan called for the following:

On the right bank:

The construction of a large new square, place du Chateau-d'Eau (the modern Place de la République). This involved demolishing the famous theater street known as "le boulevard du Crime", made famous in the film Les Enfants du Paradis; and the construction of three new major streets: the boulevard du Prince Eugène (the modern boulevard Voltaire); the boulevard de Magenta and rue Turbigo. Boulevard Voltaire became one of the longest streets in the city, and became the central axis of the eastern neighborhoods of the city. It would end at the place du Trône (the modern Place de la Nation).

The construction of boulevard Malesherbes, to connect the place de la Madeleine to the new Monceau neighborhood. The construction of this street obliterated one of the most sordid and dangerous neighborhoods in the city, called la Petite Pologne, where Paris policemen rarely ventured at night.

A new square, place de l'Europe, in front of the Gare Saint-Lazare railway station. The station was served by two new boulevards, rue de Rome and rue Saint-Lazare. In addition, the rue de Madrid was extended and two other streets, rue de Rouen (the modern rue Auber) and rue Halevy, were built in this neighborhood.

Parc Monceau was redesigned and replanted, and part of the old park made into a residential quarter.

The rue de Londres and rue de Constantinople, under a new name, avenue de Villiers, was extended to porte Champerret.

The Étoile, around the Arc de Triomphe, was completely redesigned. A star of new avenues radiated from the Étoile; avenue de Bezons (now avenue de Wagram); avenue Kléber; avenue Josephine (now avenue Marceau); avenue Prince-Jerome (now avenues Mac-Mahon and Niel); avenue Essling (now Carnot); and a wider avenue de Saint-Cloud (now avenue Victor-Hugo), forming with Champs-Elysées and other existing avenues a star of 12 avenues.

The hill of Chaillot was leveled, and a new square created at the Pont de l'Alma. Three new boulevards were built in this neighborhood: avenue d'Alma (the present avenue George V); avenue de l'Empereur (the present avenue du President-Wilson), which connected the places d'Alma, d'Iena and du Trocadéro. In addition, four new streets were built in that neighborhood: rue Francois-Ier, rue Pierre Charron, rue Marbeuf and rue de Marignan.

On the left bank:

Two new boulevards, avenue Bosquet and avenue Rapp, were constructed, beginning from the pont de l'Alma.

A new street, boulevard d'Enfer (today's boulevard Raspail) was built up to the intersection Sèvres-Babylone.

The streets around the Panthéon on Montagne Sainte-Geneviève were extensively changed. A new street, avenue des Gobelins, was created, and part of rue Mouffetard was expanded. Another new street, rue Monge, was created on the east, while another new street, rue Claude Bernard, on the south. Rue Soufflot, built by Rambuteau, was entirely rebuilt.

The island became an enormous construction site, which completely destroyed most of the old streets and neighborhoods. Two new government buildings, the Tribunal de Commerce and the Prefecture de Police, were built, occupying a large part of the island. Two new streets were also built, the boulevard du Palais and the rue de Lutèce. Two bridges, the pont Saint-Michel and the pont au Change were completely rebuilt, along with the embankments near them. The Palais de Justice and Place Dauphine were extensively modified. At the same time, Haussmann preserved and restored the jewels of the island; the square in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame was widened, the spire of the Cathedral, pulled down during the Revolution, was restored, whilst Sainte-Chapelle and the ancient Conciergerie were saved and restored.

The grand projects of the second phase were mostly welcomed, but also caused criticism. Haussmann was especially criticized for his taking large parts of the Jardin du Luxembourg to make room for the present-day boulevard Raspail, and for its connection with the boulevard Saint-Michel. The Medici Fountain had to be moved further into the park, and was reconstructed with the addition of statuary and a long basin of water. Haussmann was also criticized for the growing cost of his projects; the estimated cost for the 26,290 metres (86,250 ft) of new avenues had been 180 million francs, but grew to 410 million francs; property owners whose buildings had been expropriated won a legal case entitling them to larger payments, and many property owners found ingenious ways to increase the value of their expropriated properties by inventing non-existent shops and businesses, and charging the city for lost revenue.

Haussmann found creative ways to raise more money for the grand projects while circumventing the Legislative Assembly, whose approval was otherwise needed for direct borrowing increases. The City of Paris began paying its contractors on the new works projects with vouchers instead of money; the vouchers were then purchased from the contractors by the city's lenders, mainly the mortgage bank Crédit Foncier. In this way Haussmann indirectly raised 463 million francs by 1867; 86% of this debt was owned by Crédit Foncier. This debt conveniently did not have to be included on the city's balance sheets. Another method was the creation of a fund, the Caisse des Travaux de Paris, decreed by Napoléon III on 14 November 1858. Ostensibly it was intended to give the city greater freedom in executing the grand projects. Revenue from the sale of materials salvaged from the demolitions and the sale of lots left over from the expropriations went into this fund, amounting to some 365 million francs between 1859 and 1869. The fund expended much more than it took in, some 1.2 billion francs towards the grand projects during the ten years it existed. To offset some of the deficit, which the City of Paris was responsible for, Haussmann issued 100 million francs in securities from the fund guaranteed by the city. He only needed the approval of the city council to raise this new sum, and, like the voucher scheme, the securities were not included in the city's official debt obligations.

On 1 January 1860 Napoleon III officially annexed the suburbs of Paris out to the ring of fortifications around the city. The annexation included eleven communes; Auteuil, Batignolles-Monceau, Montmartre, La Chapelle, Passy, La Villette, Belleville, Charonne, Bercy, Grenelle and Vaugirard, along with pieces of other outlying towns. The residents of these suburbs were not entirely happy to be annexed; they did not want to pay the higher taxes, and wanted to keep their independence, but they had no choice; Napoleon III was Emperor, and he could arrange boundaries as he wished. Haussmann was keen to expand the boundaries as well, since the enlarged tax base would provide vital funding for the public works then underway. Numerous factories and workshops had been established in the suburbs, some to specifically avoid paying the , a tax on goods and materials paid at entry points into Paris. With the annexation, these facilities now had to pay tax on the raw materials and fuel they used. This was a deliberate way of discouraging the development of heavy industry in the environs of Paris, which neither Haussmann nor the city council wished to take root.

With the annexation Paris was enlarged from twelve to twenty arrondissements, the number today. The annexation more than doubled the area of the city from 3,300 hectares to 7,100 hectares, and the population of Paris instantly grew by 400,000 to 1,600,000 people. The annexation made it necessary for Haussmann to enlarge his plans, and to construct new boulevards to connect the new arrondissements with the center. In order to connect Auteuil and Passy to the center of Paris, he built rues Michel-Ange, Molitor and Mirabeau. To connect the plain of Monceau, he built avenues Villers, Wagram, and boulevard Malesherbes. To reach the northern arrondissements he extended boulevard Magenta with boulevard d'Ornano as far as the Porte de la Chapelle, and in the east extended the rue des Pyrénées.

The third phase of renovations was proposed in 1867 and approved in 1869, but it faced much more opposition than the earlier phases. Napoleon III had decided to liberalize his empire in 1860, and to give a greater voice to the parliament and to the opposition. The Emperor had always been less popular in Paris than in the rest of the country, and the republican opposition in parliament focused its attacks on Haussmann. Haussmann ignored the attacks and went ahead with the third phase, which planned the construction of twenty-eight kilometers (17 miles) of new boulevards at an estimated cost of 280 million francs.

The third phase included these projects on the right bank:

The renovation of the Jardins des Champs-Élysées.

Finishing the place du Château d'Eau (now Place de la Republique), creating a new avenue des Amandiers and extending avenue Parmentier.

Finishing the place du Trône (now Place de la Nation) and opening three new boulevards: avenue Philippe-Auguste, avenue Taillebourg, and avenue de Bouvines.

Extending the rue Caulaincourt and preparing a future Pont Caulaincourt.

Building a new rue de Châteaudon and clearing the space around the church of Notre-Dame de Lorette, making room for connection between the Gare Saint-Lazare, the Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est.

Finishing the place in front of the Gare du Nord. Rue Maubeuge was extended from Montmartre to the boulevard de la Chapelle, and rue La Fayette was extended to the porte de Pantin.

The Place de l'Opéra had been created during the first and second phases; the opera itself was to be built in the third phase.

Extending Boulevard Haussmann from the Place Saint-Augustin to rue Taitbout, connecting the new quarter of the Opera with that of Etoile.

Creating the Place du Trocadéro, the starting point of two new avenues, the modern President-Wilson and Henri-Martin.

Creating the Place Victor Hugo, the starting point of avenues Malakoff and Bugeaud and rues Boissière and Copernic.

Finishing the Rond-Point of the Champs-Élysées, with the construction of avenue d'Antin (now Franklin Roosevelt) and rue La Boétie.

On the left bank:

Haussmann did not have time to finish the third phase, as he soon came under intense attack from the opponents of Napoleon III.

In 1867, one of the leaders of the parliamentary opposition to Napoleon, Jules Ferry, ridiculed the accounting practices of Haussmann as Les Comptes fantastiques d'Haussmann ("The fantastic (bank) accounts of Haussmann"), a play-on-words based on the " Les Contes d'Hoffman" Offenbach operetta popular at the time. In the autumn of 1867, the voucher program was ruled as official debt by the Court of Accounts, rather than as the "deferred payments" which Haussmann argued they were. This made the voucher scheme illegal, since the City of Paris had not obtained the permission of the Legislative Assembly before borrowing. The City was forced to enter into renegotiations with the Crédit Foncier to convert the vouchers into regular debt. Two separate agreements were made with the Crédit Foncier; the city agreed to repay 465 million francs in total over 40 years and 39 years respectively. The debates in the Legislative Assembly surrounding the authorization of these new agreements lasted 11 sessions, with critics attacking Haussmann's borrowing, his questionable funding mechanisms, and the City of Paris's governing structure. The result was a new law, passed on April 18, 1868, which gave the Legislative Assembly oversight of the city's finances.

In the parliamentary elections of May 1869, the government candidates won 4.43 million votes, while the opposition republicans won 3.35 million votes. In Paris, the republican candidates won 234,000 votes to 77,000 for the Bonapartist candidates, and took eight of the nine seats of Paris deputies. At the same time Napoleon III was increasingly ill, suffering from gallstones which were to cause his death in 1873, and preoccupied by the political crisis that would lead to the Franco-Prussian War. In December 1869 Napoleon III named an opposition leader and fierce critic of Haussmann, Emile Ollivier, as his new prime minister. Napoleon gave in to the opposition demands in January 1870 and asked Haussmann to resign. Haussmann refused to resign, and the Emperor reluctantly dismissed him on 5 January 1870. Eight months later, during the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III was captured by the Germans, and the Empire was overthrown.

In his memoirs, written many years later, Haussmann had this comment on his dismissal: "In the eyes of the Parisians, who like routine in things but are changeable when it comes to people, I committed two great wrongs: Over the course of seventeen years, I disturbed their daily habits by turning Paris upside down, and they had to look at the same face of the Prefect in the Hôtel de Ville. These were two unforgivable complaints."

Haussmann's successor as prefect of the Seine appointed Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, the head of Haussmann's department of parks and plantations, as the director of works of Paris. Alphand respected the basic concepts of his plan. Despite their intense criticism of Napoleon III and Haussmann during the Second Empire, the leaders of the new Third Republic continued and finished his renovation projects.

1875: completion of the Paris Opéra

1877: completion of the boulevard Saint-Germain

1877: completion of the avenue de l'Opéra

1879: completion of the boulevard Henri IV

1889: completion of the avenue de la République

1907: completion of the boulevard Raspail

1927: completion of the boulevard Haussmann[43]

The Bois de Boulogne (1852-1858) was inspired by Hyde Park in London, and was designed to provide rest and relaxation for families of all classes of Parisians.

Prior to Haussmann, Paris had only four public parks: the Jardin des Tuileries, the Jardin du Luxembourg, and the Palais Royal, all in the center of the city, and the Parc Monceau, the former property of the family of King Louis Philippe, in addition to the Jardin des Plantes, the city's botanical garden and oldest park. Napoleon III had already begun construction of the Bois de Boulogne, and wanted to build more new parks and gardens for the recreation and relaxation of the Parisians, particularly those in the new neighborhoods of the expanding city. Napoleon III's new parks were inspired by his memories of the parks in London, especially Hyde Park, where he had strolled and promenaded in a carriage while in exile; but he wanted to build on a much larger scale. Working with Haussmann, Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, the engineer who headed the new Service of Promenades and Plantations, whom Haussmann brought with him from Bordeaux, and his new chief gardener, Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps, also from Bordeaux, laid out a plan for four major parks at the cardinal points of the compass around the city. Thousands of workers and gardeners began to dig lakes, build cascades, plant lawns, flowerbeds and trees. construct chalets and grottoes. Haussmann and Alphand created the Bois de Boulogne (1852-1858) to the west of Paris: the Bois de Vincennes (1860-1865) to the east; the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont (1865-1867) to the north, and Parc Montsouris (1865-1878) to the south. In addition to building the four large parks, Haussmann and Alphand redesigned and replanted the city's older parks, including Parc Monceau, and the Jardin du Luxembourg. Altogether, in seventeen years, they planted six hundred thousand trees and added two thousand hectares of parks and green space to Paris. Never before had a city built so many parks and gardens in such a short time.

Under Louis Philippe, a single public square had been created, at the tip of the Ile-de-la-Cité. Haussmann wrote in his memoirs that Napoleon III instructed him: "do not miss an opportunity to build, in all the arrondissements of Paris, the greatest possible number of squares, in order to offer the Parisians, as they have done in London, places for relaxation and recreation for all the families and all the children, rich and poor." In response Haussmann created twenty-four new squares; seventeen in the older part of the city, eleven in the new arrondissements, adding 15 hectares (37 acres) of green space. Alphand termed these small parks "green and flowering salons." Haussmann's goal was to have one park in each of the eighty neighborhoods of Paris, so that no one was more than ten minutes' walk from such a park. The parks and squares were an immediate success with all classes of Parisians.

The Palais Garnier or Paris Opera (1875), then the largest theater in the world, begun by Napoleon III but not finished until 1875. The style was described by its architect, Charles Garnier, simply as "Napoleon III."

Napoleon III and Haussmann commissioned a wide variety of architecture, some of it traditional, some of it very innovative, like the glass and iron pavilions of Les Halles; and some of it, such as the Opéra Garnier, commissioned by Napoleon III, designed by Charles Garnier but not finished until 1875, is difficult to classify, coming to be known as Second Empire style. Many of the buildings were designed by the city architect, Gabriel Davioud, who designed everything from city halls and theaters to park benches and kiosks.

His architectural projects included:

The construction of two new railroad stations, the Gare du Nord and the Gare de l'Est; and the rebuilding of the Gare de Lyon.

Six new mairies, or town halls, for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th and 12th arrondissements, and the enlargement of the other mairies.

The reconstruction of Les Halles, the central market, replacing the old market buildings with large glass and iron pavilions, designed by Victor Baltard. In addition, Haussmann built a new market in the neighborhood of the Temple, the Marché Saint-Honoré; the Marché de l'Europe in the 8th arrondissement; the Marché Saint-Quentin in the 10th arrondissement; the Marché de Belleville in the 20th; the Marché des Batignolles in the 17th; the Marché Saint-Didier and Marché d'Auteuil in the 16th; the Marché de Necker in the 15th; the Marché de Montrouge in the 14th; the Marché de Place d'Italie in the 13th; the Marché Saint-Maur-Popincourt in the 11th.

The Paris Opera (now Palais Garnier), begun under Napoleon III and finished in 1875; and five new theaters; the Châtelet and Théâtre Lyrique on the Place du Châtelet; the Gaîté, Vaudeville and Panorama.

Five lycées were renovated, and in each of the eighty neighborhoods Haussmann established one municipal school for boys and one for girls, in addition to the large network of schools run by the Catholic church.

The reconstruction and enlargement of the city's oldest hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris on the Île-de-la-Cité.

The completion of the last wing of the Louvre, and the opening up of the Place du Carousel and the Place du Palais-Royal by the demolition of several old streets.

The building of the first railroad bridge across the Seine; originally called the Pont Napoleon III, now called simply the Pont National.

Since 1801, under Napoleon I, the French government was responsible for the building and maintenance of churches. Haussmann built, renovated or purchased nineteen churches. New churches included the Saint-Augustin, the Eglise Saint-Vincent de Paul, the Eglise de la Trinité. He bought six churches which had been purchased by private individuals during the French Revolution. Haussmann built or renovated five temples and built two new synagogues, on rue des Tournelles and rue de la Victoire.

Besides building churches, theaters and other public buildings, Haussmann paid attention to the details of the architecture along the street; his city architect, Gabriel Davioud, designed garden fences, kiosks, shelters for visitors to the parks, public toilets, and dozens of other small but important structures.

The hexagonal Parisian street advertising column ( French: Colonne Morris), introduced by Haussmann.

A kiosk for a street merchant on Square des Arts et Metiers (1865).

The pavilions of Les Halles, the great iron and glass central market designed by Victor Baltard (1870). The market was demolished in the 1970s, but one original hall was moved to Nogent-sur-Marne, where it can be seen today.

The Prefecture de Police (shown here), the new Palais de Justice and the Tribunal de Commerce took the place of a dense web of medieval streets on the western part of the Île de la Cité.

The new mairie, or town hall, of the 12th arrondissement. Haussmann built new city halls for six of the original twelve arrondissements, and enlarged the other six.

Haussmann reconstructed The Pont Saint-Michel connecting the Île-de-la-Cité to the left bank. It still bears the initial N of Napoléon III.

A chalet de nécessité, or public toilet, with a façade sculpted by Emile Guadrier, built near the Champs Elysees. (1865).

The most famous and recognizable feature of Haussmann's renovation of Paris are the Haussmann apartment buildings which line the boulevards of Paris. Street blocks were designed as homogeneous architectural wholes. He treated buildings not as independent structures, but as pieces of a unified urban landscape.

In 18th-century Paris, buildings were usually narrow (often only six meters wide [20 feet]); deep (sometimes forty meters; 130 feet) and tall-as many as five or six stories. The ground floor usually contained a shop, and the shopkeeper lived in the rooms above the shop. The upper floors were occupied by families; the top floor, under the roof, was originally a storage place, but under the pressure of the growing population, was usually turned into a low-cost residence. In the early 19th century, before Haussmann, the height of buildings was strictly limited to 22.41 meters (73 ft 6 in), or four floors above the ground floor. The city also began to see a demographic shift; wealthier families began moving to the western neighborhoods, partly because there was more space, and partly because the prevailing winds carried the smoke from the new factories in Paris toward the east.

In Haussmann's Paris, the streets became much wider, growing from an average of twelve meters (39 ft) wide to twenty-four meters (79 ft), and in the new arrondissements, often to eighteen meters (59 ft) wide.

The interiors of the buildings were left to the owners of the buildings, but the façades were strictly regulated, to ensure that they were the same height, color, material, and general design, and were harmonious when all seen together.

The reconstruction of the rue de Rivoli was the model for the rest of the Paris boulevards. The new apartment buildings followed the same general plan:

ground floor and basement with thick, load-bearing walls, fronts usually parallel to the street. This was often occupied by shops or offices.

mezzanine or entresol intermediate level, with low ceilings; often also used by shops or offices.

second, piano nobile floor with a balcony. This floor, in the days before elevators were common, was the most desirable floor, and had the largest and best apartments.

third and fourth floors in the same style but with less elaborate stonework around the windows, sometimes lacking balconies.

fifth floor with a single, continuous, undecorated balcony.

mansard roof, angled at 45°, with garret rooms and dormer windows. Originally this floor was to be occupied by lower-income tenants, but with time and with higher rents it came to be occupied almost exclusively by the concierges and servants of the people in the apartments below.

The Haussmann façade was organized around horizontal lines that often continued from one building to the next: balconies and cornices were perfectly aligned without any noticeable alcoves or projections, at the risk of the uniformity of certain quarters. The rue de Rivoli served as a model for the entire network of new Parisian boulevards. For the building façades, the technological progress of stone sawing and (steam) transportation allowed the use of massive stone blocks instead of simple stone facing. The street-side result was a "monumental" effect that exempted buildings from a dependence on decoration; sculpture and other elaborate stonework would not become widespread until the end of the century.

Before Haussmann, most buildings in Paris were made of brick or wood and covered with plaster. Haussmann required that the buildings along the new boulevards be either built or faced with cut stone, usually the local cream-colored Lutetian limestone, which gave more harmony to the appearance of the boulevards. He also required, using a decree from 1852, that the façades of all buildings be regularly maintained, repainted, or cleaned, at least every ten years. under the threat of a fine of one hundred francs.

While he was rebuilding the boulevards of Paris, Haussmann simultaneously rebuilt the dense labyrinth of pipes, sewers and tunnels under the streets which provided Parisians with basic services. Haussmann wrote in his mémoires: "The underground galleries are an organ of the great city, functioning like an organ of the human body, without seeing the light of day; clean and fresh water, light and heat circulate like the various fluids whose movement and maintenance serves the life of the body; the secretions are taken away mysteriously and don't disturb the good functioning of the city and without spoiling its beautiful exterior."

Haussmann began with the water supply. Before Haussmann, drinking water in Paris was either lifted by steam engines from the Seine, or brought by a canal, started by Napoleon I, from the River Ourcq, a tributary of the River Marne. The quantity of water was insufficient for the fast-growing city, and, since the sewers also emptied into the Seine near the intakes for drinking water, it was also notoriously unhealthy. In March 1855 Haussmann appointed Eugène Belgrand, a graduate of the École Polytechnique, to the post of Director of Water and Sewers of Paris.

Belgrand first addressed the city's fresh water needs, constructing a system of aqueducts that nearly doubled the amount of water available per person per day and quadrupled the number of homes with running water.[page needed ] These aqueducts discharged their water in reservoirs situated within the city. Inside the city limits and opposite Parc Montsouris, Belgrand built the largest water reservoir in the world to hold the water from the River Vanne.

At the same time Belgrand began rebuilding the water distribution and sewer system under the streets. In 1852 Paris had 142 kilometres (88 mi) of sewers, which could carry only liquid waste. Containers of solid waste were picked up each night by people called vidangeurs, who carried it to waste dumps on the outskirts of the city. The tunnels he designed were intended to be clean, easily accessible, and substantially larger than the previous Parisian underground. Under his guidance, Paris's sewer system expanded fourfold between 1852 and 1869.

Haussmann and Belgrand built new sewer tunnels under each sidewalk of the new boulevards. The sewers were designed to be large enough to evacuate rain water immediately; the large amount of water used to wash the city streets; waste water from both industries and individual households; and water that collected in basements when the level of the Seine was high. Before Haussmann, the sewer tunnels (featured in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables) were cramped and narrow, just 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) high and 75 to 80 centimeters (2 ft 6 in) wide. The new tunnels were 2.3 meters (7 ft 6 in) high and 1.3 meters (4 ft 3 in) wide, large enough for men to work standing up. These flowed into larger tunnels that carried the waste water to even larger collector tunnels, which were 4.4 m (14 ft) high and 5.6 m (18 ft) wide. A channel down the center of the tunnel carried away the waste water, with sidewalks on either side for the égoutiers, or sewer workers. Specially designed wagons and boats moved on rails up and down the channels, cleaning them. Belgrand proudly invited tourists to visit his sewers and ride in the boats under the streets of the city.

The underground labyrinth built by Haussmann also provided gas for heat and for lights to illuminate Paris. At the beginning of the Second Empire, gas was provided by six different private companies. Haussmann forced them to consolidate into a single company, the Compagnie parisienne d'éclairage et de chauffage par le gaz, with rights to provide gas to Parisians for fifty years. Consumption of gas tripled between 1855 and 1859. In 1850 there were only 9000 gaslights in Paris; by 1867, the Paris Opera and four other major theaters alone had fifteen thousand gas lights. Almost all the new residential buildings of Paris had gaslights in the courtyards and stairways; the monuments and public buildings of Paris, the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli, and the squares, boulevards and streets were illuminated at night by gaslights. For the first time, Paris was the City of Light.

Critics of Haussmann's Paris

Haussmann's renovation of Paris had many critics during his own time. Some were simply tired of the continuous construction. The French historian Léon Halévy wrote in 1867, "the work of Monsieur Haussmann is incomparable. Everyone agrees. Paris is a marvel, and M. Haussmann has done in fifteen years what a century could not have done. But that's enough for the moment. There will be a 20th century. Let's leave something for them to do." Others regretted that he had destroyed a historic part of the city. The brothers Goncourt condemned the avenues that cut at right angles through the center of the old city, where "one could no longer feel in the world of Balzac." Jules Ferry, the most vocal critic of Haussmann in the French parliament, wrote: "We weep with our eyes full of tears for the old Paris, the Paris of Voltaire, of Desmoulins, the Paris of 1830 and 1848, when we see the grand and intolerable new buildings, the costly confusion, the triumphant vulgarity, the awful materialism, that we are going to pass on to our descendants."

The 20th century historian of Paris René Héron de Villefosse shared: "in less than twenty years, Paris lost its ancestral appearance, its character which passed from generation to generation... the picturesque and charming ambiance which our fathers had passed onto us was demolished, often without good reason." Héron de Villefosse denounced Haussmann's central market, Les Halles, as "a hideous eruption" of cast iron. Describing Haussmann's renovation of the Île de la Cité, he wrote: "the old ship of Paris was torpedoed by Baron Haussmann and sunk during his reign. It was perhaps the greatest crime of the megalomaniac prefect and also his biggest mistake...His work caused more damage than a hundred bombings. It was in part necessary, and one should give him credit for his self-confidence, but he was certainly lacking culture and good taste...In the United States, it would be wonderful, but in our capital, which he covered with barriers, scaffolds, gravel, and dust for twenty years, he committed crimes, errors, and showed bad taste."

The Paris historian, Patrice de Moncan, in general an admirer of Haussmann's work, faulted Haussmann for not preserving more of the historic streets on the Île de la Cité, and for clearing a large open space in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, while hiding another major historical monument, Sainte-Chapelle, out of sight within the walls of the Palais de Justice, He also criticized Haussmann for reducing the Jardin du Luxembourg from thirty to twenty-six hectares in order to build the rues Medici, Guynemer and Auguste-Comte; for giving away a half of Parc Monceau to the Pereire brothers for building lots, in order to reduce costs; and for destroying several historic residences along the route of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, because of his unwavering determination to have straight streets.

During the Paris Commune, the Communards built an impressive fort where the Rue de Rivoli met the Place de la Concorde. The army used side streets to move around it, and captured it from behind.

Some of Haussmann's critics said that the real purpose of Haussmann's boulevards was to make it easier for the army to manoeuver and suppress armed uprisings; Paris had experienced six such uprisings between 1830 and 1848, all in the narrow, crowded streets in the center and east of Paris and on the left bank around the Panthéon. These critics argued that a small number of large, open intersections allowed easy control by a small force. In addition, buildings set back from the center of the street could not be used so easily as fortifications. Emile Zola repeated that argument in his early novel, La Curée; "Paris sliced by strokes of a saber: the veins opened, nourishing one hundred thousand earth movers and stone masons; criss-crossed by admirable strategic routes, placing forts in the heart of the old neighborhoods."

Some real-estate owners demanded large, straight avenues to help troops manoeuvre. The argument that the boulevards were designed for troop movements was repeated by 20th century critics, including the French historian, René Hérron de Villefosse, who wrote, "the larger part of the piercing of avenues had for its reason the desire to avoid popular insurrections and barricades. They were strategic from their conception." This argument was also popularized by the American architectural critic, Lewis Mumford.

Haussmann himself did not deny the military value of the wider streets. In his memoires, he wrote that his new boulevard Sebastopol resulted in the "gutting of old Paris, of the quarter of riots and barricades." He admitted he sometimes used this argument with the Parliament to justify the high cost of his projects, arguing that they were for national defense and should be paid for, at least partially, by the state. He wrote: "But, as for me, I who was the promoter of these additions made to the original project, I declare that I never thought in the least, in adding them, of their greater or lesser strategic value." The Paris urban historian Patrice de Moncan wrote: "To see the works created by Haussmann and Napoleon III only from the perspective of their strategic value is very reductive. The Emperor was a convinced follower of Saint-Simon. His desire to make Paris, the economic capital of France, a more open, more healthy city, not only for the upper classes but also for the workers, cannot be denied, and should be recognised as the primary motivation."

There was only one armed uprising in Paris after Haussmann, the Paris Commune from March through May 1871, and the boulevards played no important role. The Communards seized power easily, because the French Army was absent, defeated and captured by the Prussians. The Communards took advantage of the boulevards to build a few large forts of paving stones with wide fields of fire at strategic points, such as the meeting point of the Rue de Rivoli and Place de la Concorde. But when the newly organized army arrived at the end of May, it avoided the main boulevards, advanced slowly and methodically to avoid casualties, worked its way around the barricades, and took them from behind. The Communards were defeated in one week not because of Haussmann's boulevards, but because they were outnumbered by five to one, they had fewer weapons and fewer people trained to use them, they had no hope of getting support from outside Paris, they had no plan for the defense of the city; they had very few experienced officers; there was no single commander; and each neighborhood was left to defend itself.

As Paris historian Patrice de Moncan observed, most of Haussmann's projects had little or no strategic or military value; the purpose of building new sewers, aqueducts, parks, hospitals, schools, city halls, theaters, churches, markets and other public buildings was, as Haussmann stated, to employ thousands of workers, and to make the city more healthy, less congested, and more beautiful.

Haussmann was also blamed for the social disruption caused by his gigantic building projects. Thousands of families and businesses had to relocate when their buildings were demolished for the construction of the new boulevards. Haussmann was also blamed for the dramatic increase in rents, which increased by three hundred percent during the Second Empire, while wages, except for those of construction workers, remained flat, and blamed for the enormous amount of speculation in the real estate market. He was also blamed for reducing the amount of housing available for low income families, forcing low-income Parisians to move from the center to the outer neighborhoods of the city, where rents were lower. Statistics showed that the population of the first and sixth arrondissements, where some of the most densely populated neighborhoods were located, dropped, while the population of the new 17th and 20th arrondissements, on the edges of the city, grew rapidly.

Haussmann's defenders noted that he built far more buildings than he tore down: he demolished 19,730 buildings, containing 120,000 lodgings or apartments, while building 34,000 new buildings, with 215,300 new apartments and lodgings. French historian Michel Cremona wrote that, even with the increase in population, from 949,000 Parisians in 1850 to 1,130,500 in 1856, to two million in 1870, including those in the newly annexed eight arrondissements around the city, the number of housing units grew faster than the population.

Recent studies have also shown that the proportion of Paris housing occupied by low-income Parisians did not decrease under Haussmann, and that the poor were not driven out of Paris by Haussmann's renovation. In 1865 a survey by the prefecture of Paris showed that 780,000 Parisians, or 42 percent of the population, did not pay taxes due to their low income. Another 330,000 Parisians or 17 percent, paid less than 250 francs a month rent. Thirty-two percent of the Paris housing was occupied by middle-class families, paying rent between 250 and 1500 francs. Fifty thousand Parisians were classified as rich, with rents over 1500 francs a month, and occupied just three percent of the residences.

Other critics blamed Haussmann for the division of Paris into rich and poor neighborhoods, with the poor concentrated in the east and the middle class and wealthy in the west. Haussmann's defenders noted that this shift in population had been underway since the 1830s, long before Haussmann, as more prosperous Parisians moved to the western neighborhoods, where there was more open space, and where residents benefited from the prevailing winds, which carried the smoke from Paris's new industries toward the east. His defenders also noted that Napoleon III and Haussmann made a special point to build an equal number of new boulevards, new sewers, water supplies, hospitals, schools, squares, parks and gardens in the working class eastern arrondissements as they did in the western neighborhoods.

A form of vertical stratification did take place in the Paris population due to Haussmann's renovations. Prior to Haussmann, Paris buildings usually had wealthier people on the second floor (the "etage noble"), while middle class and lower-income tenants occupied the top floors. Under Haussmann, with the increase in rents and greater demand for housing, low-income people were unable to afford the rents for the upper floors; the top floors were increasingly occupied by concierges and the servants of those in the floors below. Lower-income tenants were forced to the outer neighborhoods, where rents were lower.

Paris Street; Rainy Day, painted in 1877 by Gustave Caillebotte, depicts the wide boulevards of Haussmann's Paris in an Impressionist style.

The Baron Haussmann's transformations of Paris improved the quality of life in the capital. Disease epidemics (save tuberculosis) ceased, traffic circulation improved and new buildings were better-built and more functional than their predecessors.

The Second Empire renovations left such a mark on Paris' urban history that all subsequent trends and influences were forced to refer to, adapt to, or reject, or to reuse some of its elements. By intervening only once in Paris's ancient districts, pockets of insalubrity remained which explain the resurgence of both hygienic ideals and radicalness of some planners of the 20th century.

The end of "pure Haussmannism" can be traced to urban legislation of 1882 and 1884 that ended the uniformity of the classical street, by permitting staggered façades and the first creativity for roof-level architecture; the latter would develop greatly after restrictions were further liberalized by a 1902 law. All the same, this period was merely "post-Haussmann", rejecting only the austerity of the Napoleon-era architecture, without questioning the urban planning itself.

A century after Napoleon III's reign, new housing needs and the rise of a new voluntarist Fifth Republic began a new era of Parisian urbanism. The new era rejected Haussmannian ideas as a whole to embrace those represented by architects such as Le Corbusier in abandoning unbroken street-side façades, limitations of building size and dimension, and even closing the street itself to automobiles with the creation of separated, car-free spaces between the buildings for pedestrians. This new model was quickly brought into question by the 1970s, a period featuring a reemphasis of the Haussmann heritage: a new promotion of the multifunctional street was accompanied by limitations of the building model and, in certain quarters, by an attempt to rediscover the architectural homogeneity of the Second Empire street-block.

Certain Parisian suburban towns, for example Issy-les-Moulineaux and Puteaux, have built new quarters that even by their name "Quartier Haussmannien", claim the Haussmannian heritage. The Belgian capital Brussels also followed suit at the end of the same century and conducted an extensive (but smaller scale compared to Paris) demolition and renovation, carving out new central boulevards that were straight lined and flanked by Haussmann style row of apartments.

Attribution

Portions of this article have been translated from its equivalent in the French language Wikipedia.

1. ^ Haussmann's Architectural Paris - The Art History Archive, checked 21 October 2007.

2. George-Eugène Haussmann, ^ Les Mémoires, Paris (1891), cited in Patrice de Moncan, Les jardins de Baron Haussmann, p. 24.

3. de Moncan, Patrice, Le Paris d'Haussmann, pp. 64-65.

4. ^ "Champs-Elysées facts". Paris Digest. 2018.

5. ^ "Annexion des communes suburbaines, en 1860" (in French).

6. ^ This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Haussmann, Georges Eugène, Baron". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 71.

7. Haussmann, ^ Mémoires, cited in Maneglier, Hervé, Paris Impérial, p. 262.

8. ^ Goodman, David C. (1999). The European Cities and Technology Reader: Industrial to Post-industrial City. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-20079-2.

9. ^ Pitt, Leonard (2006). Walks Through Lost Paris: A Journey into the Hear of Historic Paris. Shoemaker & Hoard Publishers. ISBN 1-59376-103-1.

10. ^ Goldman, Joanne Abel (1997). Building New York's Sewers: Developing Mechanisms of Urban Management. Purdue University Press. ISBN 1-55753-095-5.

11. ^ Perrot, Michelle (1990). A History of Private Life. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-40003-8.

12. Halevy, ^ Carnets, 1862-69. Cited in Maneglier, Hervé, Paris Impérial, p. 263

13. ^ "The Gate of Paris" (PDF). The New York Times. 14 May 1871.

Carmona, Michel, and Patrick Camiller. Haussmann: His Life and Times and the Making of Modern Paris (2002)

Jones, Colin. Paris: Biography of a City (2004)

Pinkney, David H. Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris (Princeton University Press, 1958)

Weeks, Willet. The Man Who Made Paris: The Illustrated Biography of Georges-Eugène Haussmann (2000)

Hopkins, Richard S. Planning the Greenspaces of Nineteenth-Century Paris (LSU Press, 2015).

Paccoud, Antoine. "Planning law, power, and practice: Haussmann in Paris (1853-1870)". Planning Perspectives 31.3 (2016): 341-61.

Richardson, Joanna. "Emperor of Paris Baron Haussmann 1809-1891", History Today (1975), 25#12 pp. 843-49.

Saalman, Howard. Haussmann: Paris Transformed (G. Braziller, 1971).

Soppelsa, Peter S. The Fragility of Modernity: Infrastructure and Everyday Life in Paris, 1870-1914 (ProQuest, 2009).

Walker, Nathaniel Robert. "Lost in the City of Light: Dystopia and Utopia in the Wake of Haussmann's Paris". Utopian Studies 25.1 (2014): 23-51. doi:10.5325/utopianstudies.25.1.0023. JSTOR 10.5325/utopianstudies.25.1.0023.

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Haussmann's renovation of Paris - Wikipedia

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Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works programme commissioned by French Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870.

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Freiburg's Green City Concept: A Model for Sustainability

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Freiburg's Green City Concept: A Model for Sustainability

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Freiburg is a pioneer in adopting the Green City Concept, integrating nature into urban planning to create a sustainable and livable city. This approach highlights the importance of environmental considerations in urban development. Discussion questions: 1) How does Freiburg's Green City Concept contribute to sustainability? 2) What lessons can other cities learn from Freiburg's approach to integrating nature into urban planning?

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Freiburg hat sich mit seiner ehrgeizigen Umweltpolitik und einem politischen und bürgerschaftlichen Bekenntnis zu erneuerbaren Energiequellen als Green City weltweit einen Namen gemacht. Wenn es um nachhaltiges Energiemanagement geht, überzeugt Freiburg Green City mit einer Vielzahl ökologischer, te…