In the mid-1850s, Barcelona was
on the brink of collapse. An industrial city with a busy port, it had grown
increasingly dense throughout the industrial revolution, mostly spearheaded by
the huge development of the textile sector.
These days, Barcelona is
consistently praised as an urban success story. And its fortunes are
inextricably linked to Cerdà ’s work, which propelled it, in the words of
Permanyer, “from a provincial town where it was difficult to live, to a truly
modern city”.
