The Cerdà Plan: a decree from Madrid and speculation in Barcelona's Eixample

The Cerdà Plan: a decree from Madrid and speculation in the Eixample

On 4 September 1860, Queen Isabella II laid the first stone of the Eixample in what is now Plaça de Catalunya. But the grid was not born there: as argued in the thread, a year earlier it had arrived by decree from Madrid, after the municipal competition had been won by another proposal, that of Antonio Rovira i Trias. That dual origin —a central order and Ildefons Cerdà's design— underpins the whole story that trinc. And it explains why the debate is still alive a century and a half later.

Who built the Eixample: the state or the Catalan bourgeoisie?

As summed up in the debate, the order came from above and the money from below: the state provided the decree, the land and the pretext; the Catalan bourgeoisie provided the capital, putting up buildings to rent out. Again, according to that version, the original plan reserved two built sides per block with an interior garden; later speculation raised buildings on all four sides and increased the heights. Four where there were meant to be two. That is how a hygienist design turned into a rental business. Municipal opposition to the plan was fierce even before its approval, more because of what it represented —imposition from Madrid— than because of its content.

Chamfered corners, winds and "private locomotives"

Cerdà was obsessed with hygiene. He used the direction of the winds to ventilate the atmosphere, gave a key role to interior parks and gardens, and defined unusually wide streets to escape the density of the old city. He justified the chamfered corner by the visibility it gave to wheeled traffic and by the "private locomotives" that would one day drive through: he got the name wrong, not the diagnosis. Domènech i Montaner argued that such street widths would create unbearable draughts, and oriented the pavilions of the Hospital de Sant Pau against the street alignment. In 1905, Prat de la Riba was still raging against "the governments that imposed on us the monotonous and shameful grid".

1888 and 1897: how the real Barcelona grew

The 1888 Universal Exposition gave the city a new boost, renewed areas and created public services. Late nineteenth-century development, with Modernisme and the bourgeoisie investing in rental buildings, did the rest: in 1897 Barcelona absorbed Sants, Les Corts, Sant Gervasi de Cassoles, Gràcia, Sant Andreu de Palomar and Sant Martí de Provençals. The city now sold as a model of urban rationality was cooked up in that mix of decree, private money and growth in leaps and bounds.

From the grid to property as a financial asset

The modern twist to the story is another one. Some argue that housing has stopped behaving like a consumer good —cars, clothes or phones get cheaper and are replaced— and has become a speculative asset to be hoarded. From there the proposal jumps out: demolish entire old neighbourhoods and rebuild on the land, reactivating the economy and giving work to the 3 million unemployed that, according to that view, Spain has. The argument leans on the history of urban planning —the Empire State Building— and on the fact that China already operates this way. The objection is obvious: the same market that twisted Cerdà's blocks would decide what gets torn down and what gets built.

That is where the analysis stalls. The Eixample was not built by Madrid alone, but neither was it a strictly Barcelona project: there was a central decree, local capital and a speculation that devoured the design. A century and a half later, the grid still generates conflicting opinions; what is debated above all is who gets the land.