The 20th century was conditioned by the convulsive political situation, with the end of the monarchy in 1931 and the arrival of the
Second Republic, which ended with the
Civil War and was replaced by
Franco's dictatorship, until the reestablishment of the monarchy and the arrival of
democracy. Socially, this century saw the massive arrival of immigration to the city, with the consequent increase in population: if in 1900 there were 530 000 inhabitants, in 1930 they had almost doubled (1 009 000 hab), to reach between 1970 and 1980 the maximum peak (1 754 900) and by the end of the century to 1 500 000 inhabitants. With the turn of the century, a new political scenario opened up, marked by the
loss of the colonies in America and Asia and the rise of the
Regionalist League, led by politicians such as
Francesc Cambó,
Enric Prat de la Riba and the architect
Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who expressed their desire to place Barcelona on the international front line, at the level of cities such as
Paris,
New York,
Berlin or
Vienna. It is the model of the "Imperial Barcelona" proposed by Prat de la Riba, or the "Nova París del Migdia" (New Paris of the Midday) commented by Puig i Cadafalch. In this sense, projects for the improvement of infrastructures, railroads, transport and equipment, the creation of a free port, the attention to the needs of an increasingly industrialized society, the search for mechanisms to accommodate the increase in population and to satisfy aspects hitherto little attended to, such as education, culture and green spaces, all arise in this sense.
Municipal Aggregations and Plan of Connections 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
Beaux-Arts 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;''' before the opening of the
Via Laietana 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. An interesting urbanization project was that of the Can Muntaner estate (1900-1914), at the foot of Mount Carmel, in the neighborhood of
La Salut, also designed as a garden city of single-family houses. The promoter was the industrialist
Eusebi Güell, and the architect
Antoni Gaudí was in charge of the layout. The project was unsuccessful, as only two plots were sold, and in 1926 the land was ceded to the City Council and converted into a park, known today as
Park Güell. (1903), by
Antoni Gaudí 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. During the first decade of the century, public urinals called vespasianas were installed, made of metal with a circular body with a capacity for six people, above which rose a hexagonal section for advertising, topped by a little
dome. In the 1910s they were removed, and in the future it was established that all urinals had to be underground.[140] 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. Also at this time the first
taxis appeared: in 1910 the first 21 vehicles were licensed; in 1920 there were already a thousand taxis, with 64 stops throughout the city. In 1928 the green light was incorporated as a "free" signal, and in 1931 the color black and yellow was established as the city's distinguishing color. network 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.
1929 International Exposition (1929) 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. As in 1888, the 1929 Exposition had a great impact on the city's urban development, not only in the area of
Montjuïc, but also throughout the city: the squares of
Tetuan,
Urquinaona and Letamendi were landscaped; the Marina bridge was built;
Plaça de Catalunya was urbanized;
Diagonal was extended to the west and
Gran Vía to the southwest, as well as the promenades of
Gràcia and
Sant Joan in the sections around
Gràcia. Various public works were also carried out: street asphalting and sewerage were improved, public toilets were installed, and the replacement of gas lighting with electric lighting was completed. (1928) 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 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.''' 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. During these years an interesting urban planning project was generated, the Macià Plan (1932-1935), elaborated by the architects of GATCPAC, with
Josep Lluís Sert at the head, in collaboration with the French
rationalist architect Le Corbusier. The project envisaged a functional distribution of the city with a new geometric order, through large vertebral axes and with a new maritime façade defined by Cartesian skyscrapers, in addition to the improvement of facilities and services, the promotion of public housing and the creation of a large park and leisure center next to the
Llobregat delta. (1932-1936), an example of residential planning developed by GATCPAC. 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
city 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. Although the Macià Plan was not put into practice, its innovative and avant-garde design made it one of the landmarks of Barcelona urban planning, along with the Cerdà and Jaussely plans. Some of its aspects inspired the city's urban planning in the democratic period and the
1992 Summer Olympics bidding project, especially in terms of the recovery of the seafront as a space intended for leisure, as evidenced by the location of the
Maremagnum shopping center on the
Quai d'Espanya or the creation of the
Poblenou area and the various parks that follow one after the other from this to the
Diagonal Mar area. 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.''' 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. 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. 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. housing estate, the last neighborhood built during the Franco regime and an example of "vertical shantyism". 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. Between 1964 and 1972 the Plan de la Ribera was developed, aimed at the urbanization of the city's eastern seafront, from Barceloneta to Besòs, an area of 225 ha. Prepared by
Antoni Bonet i Castellana, it was based on the deindustrialization of the area, and proposed the creation of a megastructure of seven large blocks of 500 x 500 m of luxury housing. The project had a long administrative process, and was not included in the Regional Plan until 1970. However, in 1972 the Town Planning Department of the City Council requested a redrafting of the project, due to opposition from neighbors and professional associations, who denounced the speculation attempts of the companies that financed the project, so it was definitively paralyzed. However, over time the plan was recognized as an attempt to renew Barcelona's urban planning, in line with international trends such as urban renewal or renovation urbaine, and the renovation of the coast remained in the collective imagination, which was finally carried out on the occasion of the Olympic Games. 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.
Democracy and the General Metropolitan Plan The end of the dictatorship and the advent of democracy brought a new era in the architectural and urban planning panorama of the city, which was increasingly immersed in international avant-garde trends. The new
socialist councils of
Narcís Serra (1979-1982) and
Pasqual Maragall (1982-1997) were committed to urban planning and architecture as the city's hallmarks, and initiated an extensive program of urban reforms that culminated with the
1992 Olympic Games. The new public commitment was reflected in the increase of facilities such as schools, parks and gardens, roads and urban spaces, and civic, cultural and sports centers. A large part of the municipal actions consisted of the acquisition of urban land, a fact favored by the relocation of factories and industrial complexes that moved out of the city. This policy was favored by the new consistory, which appointed
Oriol Bohigas as Urban Planning delegate, which began a period of strong public investment in the city that led to a radical change in the urban physiognomy and a new projection of Barcelona at international level, which came to fruition with the Olympic Games. 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. -Meridiana, 5-Sant Andreu-Sagrera, 6-plaça de Cerdà, 7-carrer de Tarragona, 8-plaça de las Glòries, 9-Montjuïc, 10-Port Vell, 11-Carles I-Avinguda Icària, 12-Diagonal-Prim 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). During this period, numerous stretches of the city's roads were improved, with wide and often landscaped avenues designed mainly for pedestrian traffic. Some examples are: Avinguda de Gaudí,
Avinguda de Josep Tarradellas, Carrer Tarragona, the connection between the
old Rambles and the
Rambla de Catalunya,
Passeig de Lluís Companys,
Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, Via Júlia and Rambla de Prim. Numerous squares were also opened and refurbished, in many cases also landscaped, such as those of Salvador Allende, Baixa de Sant Pere, Sant Agustí Vell, la Mercè, Sóller and Robacols. 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. 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.''' 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. and the
Torre Mapfre, the two skyscrapers of the
Olympic Village that changed the physiognomy of Barcelona. Another area of action was the
Vall d'Hebron neighborhood, planned according to a project by Eduard Bru (1989-1991), which combined green areas with sports facilities. This area was the site of the Olympic Press Village (1989-1991), designed by Carlos Ferrater. The Olympic Games also led to the creation of new parks and gardens, such as the parks of Mirador del Migdia, Poblenou, Carles I and three designed by the firm
Martorell-Bohigas-Mackay: the park of the Cascades, the Olympic Port and the park of Nova Icària. 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. The Games also brought progress in the technological sector, with new infrastructures especially in the telecommunications sector: the
Collserola (by
Norman Foster) and
Montjuïc (by
Santiago Calatrava) communications towers were built, and 150 km of
optical fiber cabling were installed in the city's subsoil. 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). stop at
Plaça de Catalunya 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. 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. == 21st Century ==