Barcelona pays tribute to Cerdà with a plaque on the Eixample building where he lived

Barcelona pays tribute to Ildefons Cerdà, who conceived the characteristic grid with which the city expanded to connect the old nuclei and municipalities that now form it. And it does so, as it could not be otherwise, in the Eixample that bears his signature and, specifically, in the building where he resided at number 49 Bruc Street.

"We owe a debt of remembrance and recognition to the figure of Cerdà," said the mayor, Jaume Collboni, at the unveiling ceremony of the plaque alongside Pere Calvet, dean of the Col·legi d'Enginyers de Camins, Canals i Ports de Catalunya, who formally requested this recognition. The tribute was made possible thanks to the research to locate the block where the urban planner lived, carried out by journalists Lluís Permanyer and Carles Cols.

The plaque, according to the mayor, represents a "small gesture," but only a first step in the recognition that Barcelona owes to the urban planner. "To restore and put Ildefons Cerdà in his rightful place, it is necessary to think about the space and for the piece that represents him to be worthy of the great legacy he left us," Collboni defended.

The mayor also highlighted that Cerdà approached urban planning with the goal of "improving the quality of life of the people who live in the city," an issue that now features in debates about cities of the present and future. A recognition of the engineer 147 years after his death and a demonstration that he was not only the creator of the Eixample, but also one of its first residents.