Cerdà's plan and the Eixample
By the mid-nineteenth century Barcelona was a city suffocating inside its walls, with lethal densities. The engineer Ildefons Cerdà projected the extension —the Eixample— as a scientific city: a grid of chamfered blocks, wide streets, interior courtyards and services.
The chamfers
The 45-degree corners that define the Eixample's landscape aren't decoration: Cerdà designed them for turning trams and seeing crossings. Today they are the city's visual signature, and its best squares are widened chamfers.
The word urbanization
Cerdà coined 'urbanization' in his 1867 general theory: the Eixample isn't just a district, it's a discipline's birth certificate. Urban planners from around the world make the pilgrimage.
What didn't go as planned
The public interior courtyards were privatized and built over, and class mixing lasted about as long as the century did. Even so, the Eixample remains Europe's most influential urban extension.