Rambla

Historical Heritage

La Rambla is the city´s central avenue, its most symbolic area, at the heart of the shopping zone and forming the axis which links the old quarter with the zone that expanded with the city in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its origins go back to 1828, when it was decided to cover over the bed of Galligans Streams for health reasons.

Once the stream had been covered the resulting space was converted by popular wish into a public promenade. Between the end of the 19th century and the Spanish Civil War this was the zone in which the city´s finest collection of buildings were constructed, which in combination with those that already existed created in a single setting an area in which the baroque, neoclassical, eclectic, modernist, Noucentista and rationalist styles could be seen alongside each other.

Development of La Rambla reached its high point in the reform planned by the architect Ricard Giralt i Cassadesús in 1917, when the block of houses at the top part was demolished and replaced by a monument of Noucentista inspiration by the sculptor Enric Casanoves, dedicated to one of the city´s leading figures, Narcís Monturiol, inventor of the first submarine, the Ictineu.

  • La Rambla