1. 3.4. Pla d'Eixample, Pla Cerdà (1859)

2. General characteristics of the Plan Cerdà
Optimism. Unlimited foresight of the city’s growth.
Possibility of integrate other towns in Barcelona.
Possible limit: the Besós river.
Egalitarian city People from different social classes in the same area.
No privileged center.
Scientific vision Preliminary study of the city’s soil.
Straight, parallel and perpendicular streets.
Use of the grid plan to create a tidy city.
Importance of mobility.

3. Sanitary and hygienist aspects
- Preliminary study of the soil : climate, wind direction, oxygenation and air
cleaning.
- Key role of parks and gardens in the blocks.
- A tree every 8 meters. Plane trees (species which best adapt to the city).
- A garden in each block: they want people to live with fresh air.
- Cemeteries out of the city for reasons of healthiness.
- Concern with the impact of mobility in the city.

4. «Take what is urban and make it rural. Take
what is rural and make it urban» Ildefons
Cerdà
Cerdá defended the balance between the
urban values and the rural advantages

5. The streets of the Eixample: Geometry of the
Eixample - Public space of mobility.
1. Streets - Support to the services net (water, cleaning up, gas…)
- Street lighting.
- Trees.
- Urban Fitment.
Classification
- Manzana (block of houses).
- Space of private life.
2. Intervías
- Multi-family buildings in 2 or 3 lines
(block of
around a patio.
houses)
- With this inner patio ALL the houses have
natural light and ventilation.

6. 1. Streets
Avenida Diagonal,
Avenida Meridiana and
Paralelo don’t follow the
perpendicular trace of
the other streets.
They cross the city from
side to side in a diagonal
line.

7. Vertical layout
The engineer wanted to link the sea with the mountain.

8. Horizontal layout

9. He designed a wider street every five, to make mobility easier (for example, Gran Via de
les Corts Catalanes).

10. Wide streets to escape from the inhuman density of the city but also thinking of a
motorized future with own spaces separated from the ones for the social life.
Chamfered corners.

13. 2. Intervías : The blocks of the Eixample
The city of Cerdà is born from the house itself, the private space.
The intimacy of the dwelling is an absolute priority.

14. Design, grouping and orientation of the blocks
Cerdá thinks that the ideal house is isolated, the rural.
But the big advantages of the city make necessary to put the houses together.
Thus he designs a house which can be fitted in a high multi-family building.
Houses with double ventilation from the street and from the patio inside the «manzana» and
natural light the whole day.

15. Manzanas Eixample Dret

16. Manzanas Eixample Esquerre

17. M
The people’s opposition to Cerdá and his Plan facilitated the appearance of speculative activities and
arguments addressed to get a bigger area to build.
-The first of them was that if the streets were 20 meters wide, the depth of the buildings could be enlarged
proportionally.
-Thus central gardens were eliminated and then both sides of the buildings were put together with other
buildings, closing the «manzanas» completely.
Another argument for mass
construction :
If the streets were 20 meters wide, the
height of the buildings could be the
same and not the 16 meters planned.

18. The anti-authoritarian, anti-hierarchical, egalitarian and rationalist essence of
the plan conflicted with the vision of the bourgeoisie which preferred to have a
new city like Paris or Washington as a reference, something monumental.
Besides the first expansion of the Eixample coincides with a period known as La
Febre d’Or, characterized by the growing richness of the industrialist. In 1879 this
period of construction and speculation starts its decline.
In 1905, 50 years after the plan was approved, Prat de la Riba (Catalan politician
and journalist) expressed his anger “against the governments which imposed the
monotonous and shameful grid" instead of the system he had dreamt of a city
expanded from the old historical capital.
More than 150 years later the people from Barcelona see
our city growing in the Cerdà’s grid.