Send Gift Baskets to Gracia, Spain

A Carmelite novitiate established a convent in Gràcia in 1626 called “Nostra Senyora de Gràcia (Our Lady of Grace). Following the War of the Spanish Succession, Gràcia remained an independent municipality north/northwest of central Barcelona along the Serra de Collserola mountains. Barcelona’s version of the Champs-Élysées, Passeig de Gràcia, today home to high-end fashion brands and posh hotels, was back then a rural road connecting the town to the larger city.

Industrialization accelerated in Barcelona in the mid-1800s, and the city’s borders significantly expanded from the old city’s and Roman walls. A shift from a rural agricultural economy to an urban economy based on manufacturing and trade was spurred by the advent of new industries, enticing thousands of Catalans to move to cities.

Barcelona’s population increased by over fifty percent between 1801 and 1850, from 115,000 to roughly 187,000. There were, however, problems associated with industrial expansion. The city’s poorer neighborhoods, crowded living quarters, densely populated streets, and inadequate public infrastructure contributed to the spread of disease and uncleanliness. The life expectancy of the poor dropped to 23 years, while that of the rich increased to 36 years. With so many people sharing cramped streets, the sewage system was overwhelmed, and the poorly designed streets provided little fresh air or ventilation. The Demolition Board was a famous, published account of the conditions in the 1840s.

As the population in Barcelona grew, the government of Barcelona began investigating the possibility of building what would become the Eixample district in 1854. Situated between the old city of neighborhoods like El Raval, Barrio Gótico, and El Born and the outlying municipalities of Gràcia, Sant Martí, Sants, and Montjuïc, the Eixample (alternatively known as L’Eixample or Ensanche, in Catalan) underwent several iterations in the planning stages. Under the authority of the Spanish federal government at the time, the Ministry of Development commissioned Ildefons Cerdà, a Catalan urban planner, to design the new district in 1855. It was, however, discarded when the local government changed political sides, and the new government held a project competition, which Cerdà lost. Another Catalan urban planner, Antoni Rovira I Trias, who played a central role in demolishing the 18th-century military installation, Ciutadella, that opened up Barcelona to the new century, won the plan with the support of the local city council. Although Cerdà’s plan was heavily criticized by his contemporaries as overtly socialist, it could weather the controversy. It became the basis of the Eixample district since the central government backed it.