In my opinion, you missed one of the most curious things about Cerda's urbanistic plan. Avinguda del Paral·lel is aligned to the Earth's parallel lines and Avinguda Meridiana is aligned to the Earth's meridians. Extending two imaginary lines along those two avenues, they would intercept each other with a perfect 90º angle, right over the old Barcelona lighthouse from 1772 called Torre del Rellotge (The clock tower) at the port by the seaside. 🤓🤓 This distribution makes the whole thing make much more sense. Opposite to the classical Nort-South orientation in most North American cities, in Barcelona, thanks to Cerda's geniality, every side of every block receives direct sunlight at some point during the day. This is absolutely genius. 👏👏👏👏👏
But is that alignment of city blocks on purpose, or is it a consequence of the natural axes of the city being sea-mountain and besos-llobregat rather than N-S and E-W?
@@davidfrigolatubert7621 Completely on purpose. He aligned the blocks to the Sun so every block receives direct sunlight at some point during the day. You can see how the Sun is completely aligned with avinguda Meridiana at noon during the summer and winter solstices. I live in Meridiana and checked by myself. 😄
I visited Barcelona several times and when I heard the names of the streets, it clicked immediately. Then checked on the map and it indeed aligned perfectly. But I didn’t know about the sun, cool detail
Born& raised by St.Antoni here! LOVED the video and the accuracy. I always tell visitors about the geniality of Cerdà's planning and how all the different neighborhoods wherebefore independent villages. Also, how the left party has been trying to get back to Cerdà's green areas idea and how beautifully this is modifying the city. Unfortunately I think we went a bit too crazy with tourism and it's complicating things for us locals, but guess u can't have it all. Thanks for making it!
you got the rivers wrong at 0:55. They are one each other's place. But apart from that, as a Catalan I find most of your historic and urban elements very well explained.
I know for a fact that you did an amazing research for this video. Accurate information and great maps you have to dig in archives to find in goog quality. As a catalan and barcelonian, thank you. By the way, you live in my dream house with those views to Montserrat, a sacred and magic mountain for many catalans.
I'm for Barcelona, I LOVE how much you respect places explained in yours videos. From the accuracy to the fact of saying names in the original language. Great video man!
Great video! One critical change for the city that the Olympics brought was the construction of "Rondas", Ronda de Dalt and Ronda Litoral. 2 "urban highways" at the edges of the city (Dalt on the mountain neighborhoods, Litoral at the sea) limited to 80km/h which massively improved mobility.
To add a bit more to this great video, "ramblas" refer to dry riverbeds that temporarily fill with water after heavy rainfalls. In urban settings, these have been transformed into broad promenades. So, it is not a concept unique to Barcelona; other places, such as Alicante, also have ramblas. Loved the concent!
Thanks for being so respectful with the catalan society and their history across Barcelona, as well as for the research about the composition of the city. It has been a really enjoyable pleasure to see the video. Good job.
As a person from Barcelona I love this video! But at 6:40, the map shows the territories of the Crown of Aragon, which were the Principality of Catalonia, and the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia and Mallorca. By 1653, Spain was already formed. Many People considers that Spain was formed when the king Ferdinand II of the Crown of Aragon and the queen Isabella I of Castile married in 1469 (Catholics Monarchs). The 2 crowns, had their own laws and worked practically as different states. Basically Spain was a decentralized state. But when the Succession War began, Catalonians decided to support the Habsburgs because of Philip V's ideas of centralization of Spain. When Catalonia was abandoned by its Allies and lost the war, Philip V retired all privileges Catalonia had and they punished them with things like, as you mentioned, construction limitations
He explains that Aragón and Catunya were two completely separated regions, but to not mention the fact that were part of the same crown is a huge mistake.
That was just a marriage and a political alliance, but Castile and Aragon where two different crowns with their own institutions. Spain appears later, it's difficult to determine when though. I like to think it officially starts in 1833, whit the readministration of the territories and the creation of provinces, abolishing the different institutions and kingdoms inside
I am from Barcelona. And i have to congratulate you. Great explaining. Just one mistake: you confused Besós and Llobregat position as you swap it... the rest perfect!
Fantastic! That's what I call a good informative video. Pointing on a map different locations and then immediately supporting your explanations with real image (pictures) of those locations can make anyone understand what you're talking about.
As a Barcelonan I can only say congratulations on an amazing job 👏 I learnt from this video things about my city which i did not expect, subscribed, thank you for this!
Note that Park Güell is not "in Gracia" It's between the neighbourhoods of Gracia and El Carmel, but I think it'd be more correct to say it's part of El Carmel than Gracia, as it's only the lower part that's technically considered to be in Gracia. Most people you ask, if they know El Carmel, they'll tell you Park Güell is in El Carmel. And in fact, municipal plans that have imposed a mandatory payment to enter the park, give residents of El Carmel free tickets, whilst they don't give residents of Gracia any.
Great video! I'm a Barcelona resident (well, a bit up the coast now) and appreciated the effort you put into this. I look forward to watching your other videos!
Also iconic camerawork from the olympic - A lot of sports were filmed with either art or architecture in the background. Segrada Familia was in all pictures from the diving competition.
Horta-Guinardó is a non gridded neighborhood next to Gracia that u left off and I live there! Besides that 10/10 video u left tiny details that i don’t expect everyone to know so 10/10
Thia is fascinating, thoughtful and scholarly presented. I am researching the city for my upcoming visit and this is a fantastic intro to the history and the growth of the city.
Great video, thanks, and I must say, it’s the first time I really got interested in the company sponsoring the video and I’m very impressed by what they’ve created❤️✊🏻
@brighttriptravel you got the two rivers at the start confused -- llobregat is on the left, and Besos, to the right, ;) Great facts!!! Really enjoyed watching this.
You got the most basic fact wrong in the beginning (Besos and Llobregat are reversed in your map), how can one take the rest of your video seriously if something so easily checked is wrong?
Great video!! But I LOLed hard when Messi appeared as one of the most important people from Barcelona 😂 you obviously googled "Barcelona famous people" or something and you got him
Some of yall should clean your ears out. He said the city was/is home to those people, he didn’t say they where born there. Shut up about it everyone knows Messi is from Argentina and Picasso was from Málaga.
Hi bro I'm there rn Ngl the octagons are annoying af as a pedestrian, you have to walk a lot of extra distance to cross the street if you're going far. But the parking they provide is good i guess
4. The medieval walls passed through the streets Pelai and Fontanella, not through the rondas Universitat and St Pere. Pl. Catalunya was created with the Eixample outside the medieval and modern perimeter.
Nice video! u made a few mistakes like switching the rivers names although it is very well explained. Just one think, the district or zone is not called gothic cuarter but ''ciutat vella'', tranlated to old city. Also, near la ribera, also known as ''Born'', there's another neighbourhood located in the Ciutat Vella district called ''Barri de Sant Pere''.
Well, "technically" all the old neighbourhoods of Ciutat Vella on the right side of Via Laietana were all merged into 1 single neighbourhood with the supershort and original name of "Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera". So you are both right at the same time, somehow xd
Excellent video! If I may pinpoint a couple of details... 1) You got the rivers switched: the Llobregat river lies southwest (between the city and the airport, basically), and Besòs in the northeast; 2) Philip V was not only bossed around by Louis XIV, but he was also Louis' grandson (which basically meant the Bourbons were controlling France and Spain.
7. Opening of Via Laietana was very harsh against neighbours. 10.000 were evicted without alternatives. Was not only a matter of demolishing old buildings, City Council did not well with workers living there.
The plan of Ildefons Cerdà was not approved by the Central Government! They actually wanted Antoni Rovira i Trias’s plan to keep Catalan population “under control,” as it was easier with one or two central loci than with an equalitarian neighborhood structure. Also, buildings structures proposed by Cerdà were much more spacious than they currently are.
6:30 Barcelona was basically turned into a prison for thousands of catalans for two hundred years. Before the roman Barcino there were several settlements in the "Plana de Barcelona" area, from whose Laia and Barkeno might have been the most relevant, the first one was the capital of the tribe of the Laietans. It is only speculated where this settlements were, Laia it's supposed to have been in Montjuïc, probably below of what nowadays it's the castle; even today it is property of the spanish military so there is no way archeologist are going to mess around there. Anyways, all of the stones must have been reused later to build the medieval and the modern cities, so it is hard we are going to find anything. There have been other iberian settlements found in various places in the mountains in the area (both in Barcelona, Sta. Coloma, Badalona or Esplugues municipalilty areas) but we don't have names for those settlements.
