Barcelona, on paper

Twenty maps, digital resources, and five thematic sections that trace different stages in the expansion of Barcelona. If you’re curious about how the city developed between the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth, the Arxiu Històric de Barcelona invites you to visit the exhibition Barcelona en mapes: Gestionar el creixement de la ciutat (1800–1925), featuring some of the most representative cartographic documents from the period.

The maps on display reveal how Barcelona grew from the year 1800 onwards—a time of major urban transformation when cartography became essential to city planning. Many of these maps were commissioned by the City Council itself, documenting new neighbourhoods and buildings, the expansion of the road network, the layout of water and sewer systems, and the appearance of the city’s first parks. These growing cartographic needs eventually led to the creation, in 1925, of the Oficina del Pla de la Ciutat, responsible for producing the maps used to manage municipal services efficiently.

The exhibition is organised into five sections, each corresponding to a different historical period. The first, L’herència setcentista, looks at the transformation of the city following the construction of the Ciutadella on the site of the Ribera neighbourhood. Early maps show what Barcelona looked like before this military complex was built, and others reveal the city’s structure once the fortress was completed in 1740.

The second section, Modernitzar la ciutat, revisits the years when Barcelona’s population grew rapidly while still confined within its medieval walls. Maps produced during the Peninsular War by the occupying army—using the most advanced cartographic techniques of the time—depict what lay beyond the walls.

At the heart of the third section, L’Eixample: un nou model de ciutat, is the famous Ildefons Cerdà plan, which proposed a rational, expansive design for the fast-growing areas outside the old city. Inside the walls, however, the picture was very different. The fourth section, Reforming the inner city, uses historic maps and digital reconstructions to show the dense, overcrowded, and unhealthy conditions that persisted in the old quarters.

Finally, Els reptes cartogràfics d’una ciutat en creixement accelerat focuses on the annexation of neighbouring municipalities from 1897 onwards and the resulting expansion of infrastructure and services. Maps of Gràcia, Sant Gervasi, and Sant Martí de Provençals, together with digital resources, illustrate how these once-independent towns were incorporated into the modern city.

If you’d like to explore how Barcelona grew throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the maps that documented its transformation, visit Barcelona en mapes: Gestionar el creixement de la ciutat (1800–1925) at the Arxiu Històric de Barcelona — and check the website for full details before your visit.