Architecture and Urban Planning
Are you passionate about architecture? If so, you've come to the ideal city. In the 19th century, Barcelona set the benchmark for architecture around the world with the building of the Eixample district and the transformation of the city set out in Ildefons Cerdà's groundbreaking Cerdà Plan. The Eixample is the showcase for most of the city's landmarks from Catalonia's home-grown art nouveau movement, modernisme, and its leading lights, Antoni Gaudí, Puig i Cadafalch and Domènech i Montaner. But it was just the starting point: today Barcelona displays examples of different contemporary architectural trends and is a world-class hub for innovation in architecture and urban planning. You will find buildings and projects by some of the world's foremost architects and architects' practices, from Mies van der Rohe to Frank Gehry, and including Arata Isozaki, Toyo Ito, Richard Meier and Jean Nouvel. The city is also home to a vast array of local talent, with world-famous architects such as Oriol Bohigas, Ricardo Bofill, Viaplana and Piñón, Federico Correa and Alfonso Milà, Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue, Elías Torres and José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Beth Galí, EMBT Arquitectes, Bet Figueras and Josep Llinàs, to name just some. With such an impressive architectural heritage, it is only logical that Barcelona has been chosen as the World Capital of Architecture 2026 by UNESCO-UIA, the year it will also be hosting the UIA World Congress of Architects.
With these milestone events on the horizon, Barcelona is preparing to bring its splendid architecture to a wider audience and share the potential of its new generation of architects who are firmly committed to transforming the city through innovation while preserving the warmth that makes it one of the best cities in the world. We invite you to visit Barcelona and see it with different eyes through its contemporary architecture, discover its capacity to transform and improve people's lives, and look at the way the city answers the contemporary challenges with ingenuity and talent.
