Plaça de Catalunya

At the top of the Ramblas stretches the Plaça de Catalunya, focal point of the modern city, balanced neatly between medieval Barcelona and the Eixample. As squares go, it’s up there with the blockbusters (Red Square in Moscow is only slightly larger), and surrounded by the heroic early 20th-century commercial architecture that the Catalans (like the rest of the Spaniards) did so well.

Cerdà intended something grand here, but politics, procrastination and disappointment with his Eixample plan postponed it. In the meantime, huge private mansions went up in the middle, causing more delays as their owners were taken to court to get them demolished. Finally, the square, as designed by Francesc Nebot, was inaugurated in 1927.

In the centre are two illuminated fountains and Subirachs’ monument to Francesc Macià, Republican president of the Generalitat in 1931, a large upside-down stair on a pedestal. This Piranesian hulk looks ready to crush the Goddess, an older, wistful sculpture by Josep Clará. In the same Noucentista mould is Pau Gargallo’s stone Shepherd Playing a Flute and the rather dopey Barcelona by Frederic Marés, an allegory of industry (Mercury) and maritime trade (a woman on a horse holding a ship).