Plaça de Catalunya
The Plaça de Catalunya ( German Catalonia Square) is a square in the center of Barcelona . Since it represents the link between the old town ( Barri Gòtic ) and the new town ( Eixample ) , it plays a central role and is considered by the inhabitants of this city and its surroundings as the center of Barcelona. Characteristic of this square is its star-shaped figure made of blue, red and gray tiles and the traffic-noise-shielding planting with fountains that surrounds the square.
Adjacent streets and buildings
In a south-easterly direction, the Plaça de Catalunya is connected to the former port by the Les Rambles promenade. On the left edge of the median of the Rambles is the Font de Canaletes , a cast-iron drinking water dispenser that is said to have anyone who drinks from it return to Barcelona.
The Carrer de Pelai branches at the corner Rambles towards the Plaça de l'Universitat off, here is the shopping center El Triangle with the branches of Massimo Dutti , Sephora and fnac .
On the northwest side of the Passeig de Gràcia leads to the old town center of the Gràcia district . It is a wide boulevard where, among other architectural sights, there are also Casa Milà and Casa Batlló , two important works by Antoni Gaudí .
Two of the streets branching off from Plaça de Catalunya are called "Ronda" - the Ronda de Sant Pere and the Ronda de la Universitat - they are part of a system of arched, inter-district connecting streets , which lead around the old city center at increasing intervals outer Ronda de Dalt at the foot of the ridge of the Serra de Collserola .
The square is surrounded by representative, majestic buildings in neoclassical style that traditionally housed banks, such as the Banco Español de Crédito between Passeig de Gràcia and Rambla de Catalunya or the Spanish National Bank between the Rambles and Carrer Portal de l'Àngel. These traditional buildings were already equipped with lavish, splendid neon neon signs on their roofs in the 1960s.
An exception to this architectural style is the branch of the El Corte Inglés department store chain , the largest inner-city department store in Barcelona , located on the northeastern edge of the square . The building is made of reinforced concrete composite construction. It initially only extended over part of this side of the square, then expanded on its back to another plot of land on the Ronda de Sant Pere and initially failed to connect both department store parts on the front because a large pharmacy on the corner Property defied takeover for years. Incidentally, a cafe in the department store has a wonderful view of the entire square.
The square is considered to be busy and is surrounded by numerous shops, restaurants , bars and cafes , not all of which have an ancient tradition. Café Zurich is one of the oldest restaurants . Next to the Corte Inglés there used to be a piano bar, where the brother of the Belgian Queen Fabiola hired himself out as a pianist. From here you can start a city tour in open buses, explore the Rambles 1500 meters down to the port or, if you keep to the left of the Rambles, stroll through narrow streets in the Barri Gòtic , where there are a large number of old buildings.
The corner of Carrer de Pelai is a popular meeting place for meetings.
Transport hub
The Plaça de Catalunya is an important traffic junction: above ground for a large number of bus routes and the shuttle buses to the city's airport , underground for the metro and rapid transit system, spread over two levels. Two of the city's five metro lines (L1 and L3) cross under the square. This station was put into operation as early as 1924 with the first metro line in Barcelona. Two lines of the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (L6 and L7) also begin here .
This mode of transport used to be a private company called Ferocarriles de Cataluña (since 1979 Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya ) , during the Franco era and shortly afterwards, and opened up the hinterland through a tunnel under Mount Tibidabo ( Sant Cugat del Vallès , Rubí , Terrassa and Sabadell ) decades before a road tunnel was also built under the ridge of the Serra de Collserola . In addition, some RENFE regional trains also stop in the underground station.
The square is also the starting point for the Aerobús to Barcelona Airport, which leaves every 6 to 15 minutes. The express bus stops at other stations in the city, e.g. B. at Passeig de Gràcia, Plaça d'Espanya and at Sants Estació (main train station). The driving time is 35 to 40 minutes. This is also where the two city tour lines, the blue and the red line, meet.
Since 2007 there are also some public bike rental stations on the square.
The last major renovation of the square took place as part of the preparation for the Olympics from 1986 to 1992.
history
The prehistory of the Plaça de Catalunya is characterized by the expansion - Catalan Eixample - of the city of Barcelona. Towards the middle of the 19th century, the city with its then walls was limited to today's old town and was bursting at the seams. The expansion consisted of the removal of the city walls and the adjacent places such as B. Gràcia were incorporated. As part of an architecture competition, a dispute broke out between Antoni Rovira i Trias , who proposed a star-shaped arrangement of the street network, and Ildefons Cerdà , who advocated a right-angled street network, over the development of the large newly added area between Barcelona and these places , and how one Looking at today's city map shows the plans of the second were preferred by the royal family in Madrid.
According to the plans of Rovira, which were more popular with the population, the streets would have run in a star shape towards today's Plaça de Catalunya, which shows that this place can be seen as the center of the new, expanded Barcelona even before the construction of the square .
The cornerstone of the very first house of the urban expansion, i.e. the rectangular network of streets to Cerdá so typical for Barcelona, was laid on September 4, 1860 by Queen Isabel II where the Plaça de Catalunya is today .
The Barcelona before 1860 and the city expansion according to the plans of Cerdà (Eixample) are still very easy to distinguish on the city map today - here a winding tangle of small alleys, as an absolutely regular pattern of a right-angled street network and square blocks with traffic-friendly angled corners .
Towards the end of the 19th century, the land on which the square is now located began to be expropriated, including the cafés, theaters and exhibition buildings there.
The square was built in the years 1902 to 1929 according to plans by the architect Francesc Nebot and was opened on November 2, 1927 by King Alfonso XIII. inaugurated.
The connection between Plaça de Catalunya and Plaça de Lesseps was inaugurated in 1924 as the first metro line in Barcelona. It was later built so that it forks there, with one branch under the Rambles to the port and another branch under Via Laietana to the post office, which roughly corresponds to today's line 3. However, this was not the very first rail-based mass transit system from Plaça de Catalunya.
An initially above-ground railway connection from the historic city center to Sarrià was inaugurated in 1863, the terminus must have been not far from the place where the Plaça de Catalunya was later built. It is the forerunner of today's underground railway line of the former Ferrocarriles de Cataluña, SA , today Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat, beyond Sarrià under the Tibidabo into the hinterland. Around 1929, this connection between Plaça de Catalunya and the Muntaner station was moved underground, and during the 1950s the remaining section along Via Augusta to Sarrià was also laid. Around 1950 a branching route was created under the c / Balmes to the foot of the Avda. del Tibidabo.
During the Spanish Civil War in May 1937, Plaça de Catalunya was a starting point and a prominent scene of violent clashes between anti-Franco opponents within the Republican zone. On May 3, the communist police chief Salas stormed the anarchist-controlled Telefónica building on the east side of the square. These conflicts between centralist-authoritarian and anarcho-syndicalist groups loyal to the Kremlin were also known as May events or "May days" ("Fets de Maig").
In 1940, between Plaça de Catalunya and Carrer de Pelai, Avinguda de la Llum was inaugurated, the very first underground shopping mall in Europe. It was closed in 1990.
The El Corte Inglés department store opened in 1962.
Until about 1970, along the Ronda de Sant Pere and Ronda de l'Universitat, drove at Plaça de Catalunya by trolley buses . Tram lines did not pass there directly (in the 1960s), but there were some in the city center. At the most important intersections in the adjacent Eixample , the traffic lights stood as an obelisk-like column in the middle of the intersection and carried an elongated, church-tower-like point at which, in addition to the traffic lights, a series of small green and red lights gradually went out to indicate the remaining traffic light phase. It was also typical of the 1960s that the edge of the inner, round area of Plaça de Catalunya, like an arena or a theater, was furnished with several rows of chairs, the use of which had to be paid for a small fee.
Around 1972 the building of the then state-owned Spanish telephone company Telefónica burned down on the corner of Carrer Portal de l'Àngel and Carrer de Fontanella . Important parts of the local telephone network were destroyed.
As a result of the protests in Spain in 2011/2012 , the square was occupied. On May 27th, the police tried to forcefully evacuate the square.
literature
- Barcelona the renewed City Edition of HOLSA Barcelona Holding Olimpico SA for architects and engineers who took part in the renovation of the city
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ View from the Cafe des El Corte Ingles. Retrieved March 5, 2020 .
Coordinates: 41 ° 23 '12.1 " N , 2 ° 10' 11.6" E