Les Rambles, Barcelona

Les Rambles of Barcelona are located on the central north-south axis of the city. They are one of the most formally complex and vital thoroughfares anywhere. The name Les Rambles in plural, refers to the division of the famous promenade into six interconnected sections. These have been identified throughout history with adjacent institutions or activities: Rambla de Canaletes, Rambla dels Estudis, Rambla de Sant Josep, Rambla dels Caputxins, Rambla de Santa Monica, and Rambla del Mar.

But in fact, the morphology of Les Rambles is more easily understood and experienced as a three- part composition. Each enriched by some of the greatest historic buildings and places in the city, such as the Mercat de la Boqueria, the Placa Reial and the Dressanes. A long, straight space dominates the middle part of the thoroughfare, and establishes its dominant character. The Alameda planted along the entire length of the middle part is of a huge scale, and produces the effect of a cathedral nave. To the north and south, two funnel-shaped residual spaces, more open and less planted, transition to the rest of the city, leading to the Eixample and the harbor respectively.

The collective architectural character of Les Rambles was established in the late 18th century. The juxtaposing of buildings previously attached to the demolished western medieval wall, with the irregularly lotted suburban buildings in he Raval across from them, initially produced a very heterogeneous architectural fabric. In the last two centuries, this pattern has become dominant. The addition of buildings diverse in type, style, scale, height, profile, materials, and decorative details, has resulted in Les Rambles being defined by an extremely varied built edge.

Pedestrian traffic along the thoroughfare is constant and very high in volume, the result of its privileged location along the central movement axis of Barcelona. This high pedestrian volume generates a powerful retail economy. Stores occupy the ground floors of almost all buildings and a variety of picturesque, temporary retail activities are accommodated in pavilions on the central island. All kinds of public spectacles also take place along its length. The experience of continuous waves of energy and vitality washing over the place produces a sense of great joy and conviviality.

Yet, the single most important formal ingredient of Les Rambles is in the geometric definition of its plan. The place is a virtual symphony of diverging dimensions, an ode to asymmetry and irregularity. The variation of the combined right – of way, sidewalk, carriageway, and pedestrian island dimensions is extreme. The right- of- way varies between 75 feet at its narrowest, to 190 feet at its widest. In places, sidewalks can be as small as 4 feet and as large as 41 feet. The carriageway that accommodates traffic and parking, measures between 15 and 33 feet. The pedestrian median squeezes down to 32 feet and opens up to 101 feet. Nowhere in the kilometer length of Les Rambles are the dimensions of the four elements described above, ever repeated singly or in combination.

The visual effect is as extraordinary as it is unique. Moving on foot from the unusual vantage point of the center of the right of way, surrounded by a vertically and horizontally varied architectural enclosure, following in the vector of a lightly sloping ground, through a constant dimensional variation in plan and section, in the shifting light of the sun, produces a rare sensation: The ground, buildings, trees, vehicles, pavilions, people, animals and inanimate objects seem to be engaged all together in gentle motion. This is the magic that is experienced on Les Rambles, and the foundation of its reputation as one of the most famous thoroughfares in the world.

Rambla Catalunya

The Rambla Catalunya is one of Barcelona’s most distinctive and elegant urban thoroughfares. Together with the Passeig de Gracia, it occupies the geographic center for the Eixample, the heroic 19th century regional enlargement of the city, designed by Ildefonso Cerda. This Rambla was built along ten new, uniform, repetitive, city blocks. Conceived as an extension of the historic Les Rembles, it connected the medieval core of the city with the village of Gracia.

As with all the other street types that Cerda designed throughout the Eixample, the Rambla Catalunya has a dimensionally stable plan along its entire length. The right of way measures 98 feet in width, the pedestrian central island 42 feet, both sidewalks, 11 feet each and both the single, one-way traffic and parking lanes, 16 feet each. The small sidewalks are particularly noteworthy as they force most pedestrians to circulate on the central island. There are elegant retail stores lining the ground floors of the buildings along most of the Rambla’s length. Many of these ground floor businesses are cafes and restaurants. Their tables are often located under umbrellas in the shade of the Alameda of the central island and are served by waiters who have to cross the moving traffic to reach their clients.

The dimensions of the two carriageways are tight for traffic movement and parking and, as a result, they appear diminutive compared to the width of the pedestrian island. Pedestrian traffic is favored by the continuous slope of the ground plane, and various physical and functional impediments to the speedy flow of traffic: Continuous lines of tree trunks at both edges of the pedestrian islands, the constant and random street crossing by pedestrians, the vibrancy of the store graphics, the merchandise in the storefront windows, and the distracting decorative detail of most of the buildings.

The sectional configuration of the Rambla Catalunya is also very distinctive, just under 1:1 in proportion of street width to height. The visual effect it conveys is one of intense enclosure and memorable urbanity. The continuous and rhythmic sequence of street trees planted as an Alameda, light poles, and street furniture, further contribute to the stable visual character of the place. But the formal signature of this Rambla is most dependent on the quality of the buildings defining its edges.

The immense 300-plus city block Eixample project was built out over approximately 100 years through architectural designs operating on two lot and building types only: Stacked flats in rectangular lots, and stacked flats in triangular corner lots. How could such a rational, repetitive, relentless degree of typological repetition ever produce such a unique and distinguished built environment?

It is because each block face is relieved by mixed-use buildings of spectacular individual design. There are six 50-foot-wide lots on the orthogonal portions of every block side facing the Rambla Catalunya. Each of these lots is occupied by a separate building designed by the hand of an accomplished architect. Some of the best examples of Catalan Modernismo (Art Nouveau) are to be found there. The stone facades, rich architectural details, and deeply projecting frontages of these buildings, form an architectural fabric that animates and enriches the public realm of the Rambla, providing a theatrical stage for the common and the ritual events that unfold day-in and day-out along this spectacular urban promenade.

To be published in Street Design: The Art & Practice of Making Complete Streets by John Massengale and Victor Dover (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2013).