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Tourist information Barcelona
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Barcelona is a great urban core, a main reference for a metropolitan region inhabited by more than four million people, which is configured as one of the richest and most active areas in Europe. Both from its territorial situation and from its economic structure, our city has consolidated as a dynamic centre, where commercial, logistic and industrial activity, our welcome to a ever growing number of visitors and residence meet together.It must be guaranteed, for today but also for the future, a sustainable mobility, that is, less aggressive to the environment and the citizen, more planned, more efficient, more resource-saving and more respectful to the environment. Within this context, public transport stands out as the main character, as well as promoting other transport styles, such as bikes or walking.
In the cultural panorama of Barcelona contemporary art is a key strategic sector, and its wider diffusion thanks to the increased accessibility provided by new public spaces is complemented by the greater social role of creative artists in the city today. In the light of this Barcelona has for some time now been particularly interested in the artistic avant-gardes.
The visual arts are physically present in the city in the form of open-air sculptures, in the activities of the numerous private galleries (concentrated in and around carrer Consell de Cent, in the Born area and most recently in certain streets in Ciutat Vella), in the exhibitions organized by cultural centres and institutions -such as the MACBA, the CCCB, the Palau de la Virreina, or the Art Centre Santa Mònica- and single-artist museums that also exhibit the work of their subject's contemporaries as a means of extending our awareness of their historical and artistic context, such as the Museu Picasso, Fundació Joan Miró, Fundació Antoni Tàpies.
This is the context that underpins exhibition ventures such as the cycle Mediterraneum at the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat, which presents the Mediterranean as a space of cultural interchange, and the exhibition París-Barcelona, produced in collaboration with the Musée Picasso in Paris. In addition to displaying their own collections and hosting a wide range of temporary exhibitions, the museums also run a huge variety of activities: itineraries and evening visits, workshops for schools, courses and cycles of lectures and live music are coming more and more to configure the idea of the museum as a driving force of the city's cultural dynamic. The museums work to define differentiated types of provision oriented at specific audiences, and organize programmes such as Summer in the Museums and Christmas in the Museums.
The level of public response is one of the keys to success in the ongoing task of improving the city's museums. The number of people who visit Barcelona's fifty or so public and private museums each year is currently running at 7 million. Of particular note in terms of number of visits are the Museo Picasso (with its important collection of the painter's work, in addition to temporary exhibitions), and the Fundación Joan Miró.
Mediaeval and modern Barcelona. The Mediaeval period gave Barcelona one of its outstanding architectural gems, the Gothic quarter, which presents all the splendour of an era epitomized by the Plaça del Rei, with its churches, houses, palaces and chapels and the façade of the Cathedral. Of note outside of the Gothic quarter are carrer Montcada and its noble palaces, the historic Hospital de la Santa Creu, the Drassanes shipyards and the monasteries of Sant Pau del Camp and Santa Maria de Pedralbes. Fine examples of the architecture of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries can be found in Barcelona in the churches of Betlem, the Mare de Déu de la Mercè, the Casa de la Caritat, the Palau de la Virreina, the Labyrinth in Horta and the various manor houses still to be seen in Barcelona.
The construction of the Eixample and Modernisme. In addition to outstanding public buildings such as the Boqueria market, the University, the Gran Teatre del Liceu Opera House and the Plaça Reial, this period was marked by the construction of Barcelona's Eixample or New Town to a project by Ildefons Cerdà. Modernisme, too, has left an architectural legacy of the first order. The work of Gaudí (the Sagrada Família, the Casa Milà-La Pedrera, the Casa Vicenç, the Casa Batlló, Park Güell, etc.), Puig i Cadafalch (the Amatller and Martí houses, the Palau Macaya, etc.) and Domènech i Montaner (the Hospital of Sant Pau, the Palau de la Música Catalana are all key points of reference in the history of architecture, while a number of them are also World Heritage sites.
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