L’Any Cerdà

L’Any Cerdà – Cerdà Year – consists of a fascinating series of events investigating and celebrating the contribution that the town planner Ildefons Cerdà made in the development of the city of Barcelona.

It’s unlikely that you will be able to think of too many town planners that have had the 150th anniversary of their Remodelling Plan for a city commemorated; but then few had the overwhelmingly positive impact that Cerdà had.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Barcelona was a cramped and overcrowded medieval walled city surrounded by pockets of disparate communities. In 1859, Cerdà proposed a plan of urban development that would allow the city to progress in a controlled, efficient and socially healthy manner. Just ten years later, the work constructing L’Eixample, which was the focus of Cerdà’s futuristic ideas, had started.

L’Eixample was designed in a grid-like pattern with extremely wide streets, with many plazas formed at junctions, and the Avinguda Diagonal as the main arterial thoroughfare. The original intention was for there to have been many green spaces and parks, although that aspect of the plan was less successful. Many of Barcelona’s residents still feel that L’Eixample, with its wonderful instances of modernista architecture and stylish streets, represents the city at its finest.

L’Any Cerdà has a whole series of exhibitions, debates, publications, projects and activities which will run until June, 2010. These include guided walks around the city examining Cerdà’s legacy; public debates around the whole topic of urban development and regeneration; and three exhibitions – Cerdà and the Barcelona of the Future at the CCCB, The Eixample of Cerdà: 150 years of modernity at the Maritime Museum and Cerdà and Barcelona: the first Metropolis, 1853 – 1897 at the Saló del Tinell. There will also be some interesting comparisons of the ways in which L’Eixample and El Raval have developed in totally contrasting ways.

L’Any Cerdà will culminate at the beginning of June, 2010 with the Nit Blanca de la Diagonal, the White Night on the Dragonal – a night of different cultural activities along the road.

For more information about Cerdà and his influence on the development of Barcelona and the year of events under way, go to the official website for L’Any cerdà at www.anycerda.com .

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