Architecture

Like many other cities in Spain, Barcelona claims its share of neolithic dolmens and ruins from the Roman periods. Relics of the Roman colony of Barcino can be seen (and more are being found all the time), as can monuments surviving from the Middle Ages, when the Romanesque solidity of no-nonsense barrel vaults, narrow windows, and fortified design were widely used.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, religious fervor swept through Europe, and pilgrims began to flock to Barcelona on their way west to Santiago de Compostela, bringing with them French building styles and the need for new and larger churches. The style that emerged, called Catalan Gothic, had harsher lines and more austere ornamentation than traditional Gothic. Appropriate for both civic and religious buildings, it used massive ogival (pointed) vaults, heavy columns, gigantic sheets of sheer stone, clifflike walls, and vast rose windows set with colored glass. One of Barcelona's purest and most-loved examples of this style is the Basilica of Santa María del Mar, northeast of the city's harbor. Built over a period of only 54 years, it is the purest example of Catalan Gothic in the city. Other examples include the Church of Santa María del Pi, the Saló del Tinell (part of the Museu de la Ciutat), and, of course, the mesmerizing Barri Gòtic itself.

It is the modernisme movement, however, that seems to most enthrall visitors to Barcelona. Barcelona boasts the highest concentration of modernista architecture in the world. Modernisme is a confusing term, as "modernism" generally denotes 20th-century functionality. It is best translated as Art Nouveau, a movement that took hold of Europe in the latter 1800s in the arts. In Barcelona, it shone in architecture with its star being Antoni Gaudí , the eccentric and highly devout architect responsible for Barcelona's symbol: the Temple of the Sagrada Família.

The modernistas were obsessed with detail. They hailed the past in their architectural forms (from Arabic to Catalan Gothic) and then sublimely sprinkled them with nature-inspired features employing iron, glass, and florid ceramic motif, all of which are seen in dazzling abundance in the city. Other modernista architects include Domènech i Montaner and Puig i Cadafalch, whose elegant mansions and concert halls seemed perfectly suited to the enlightened, sophisticated prosperity of the 19th-century Catalonian bourgeoisie. A 19th-century economic boom coincided with the profusion of geniuses that emerged in the building business. Entrepreneurs who had made their fortunes in the fields and mines of the New World commissioned some of the beautiful and elaborate villas in Barcelona and nearby Sitges.

In 1858 the expansion of Barcelona into the northern L'Eixample district provided a blank canvas for modernista architects. The gridlike pattern of streets was intersected with broad diagonals. Although it was never endowed with the more radical details of its original design, it provided a carefully planned, elegant path in which a growing city could showcase its finest buildings.

Consistent with the general artistic stagnation in Spain during the Franco era (1939-75), the 1950s and 1960s saw a tremendous increase in the number of anonymous housing projects around the periphery of Barcelona and, in the inner city, eyesore-ridden decay. But as the last tears were being shed over the death of General Franco elsewhere in the country, Barcelona's intelligentsia were envisioning how to regenerate their city after decades of physical degradation under the dictator.

When Barcelona won its Olympic bid to host the Summer Games in 1992, work on their vision of "New Barcelona" accelerated. City planners made possible the creation of smart new urban beaches, a glitzy port and marina, city traffic-reducing ring roads, daring public sculptures and parks, and promenades and squares weaving through the Old City. The objective was to rejuvenate the barri, the distinct village-neighborhoods of Barcelona that often denote one's income or political stance (sometimes even the language or football team) and make up the city's peculiar territoriality. This radical and ingenious approach did not go unnoticed by the rest of the world. In 1999 the Royal Institute of British Architects presented Barcelona's City Council with their Gold Medal, the first time a city (as opposed to an architect, such as previous winners Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright) had received the accolade. Barcelona is now used as a model across Europe for town planners wishing to overhaul their own downtrodden cities.

Nearly 15 years after the city's Olympic Year, the physical face of Barcelona is still changing by leaps and bounds. With an engaged local government still at the helm, broad swaths of industrial wasteland have been reclaimed north of the city for parkland, a new marina, and ritzy residential neighborhoods. A new city nucleus in the north is being created around the terminal for the AVE high-speed train, which will link Madrid and Barcelona and will go from there to the French border. Still a city that's not afraid to take risks with its architecture, Barcelona's skyline has been enhanced by French architect Jean Nouvel's daring and controversial Torre Agbar (in the outer suburb of Glòries), which has become the towering symbol of a city embracing the future with bravado.