Current Time in Eixample, Spain

The Eixample is the great central district of Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Its name means the extension, and it occupies the plain between the medieval old town and the hills of Gracia and Tibidabo, a vast grid of straight streets laid out with mathematical regularity across what was once open farmland. Wide avenues cut diagonally through the grid, and the mild Mediterranean climate keeps its terraces busy for most of the year.

Around a quarter of a million people live in the district, which is the most populous in the city and the setting for much of Barcelona's commercial, professional and cultural life. Its blocks contain offices, hospitals, fashion houses, restaurants and some of the most valuable property in Spain, and its two main shopping streets, Passeig de Gracia and Rambla de Catalunya, are among the most famous in Europe.

The district was born in 1859, when the engineer Ildefons Cerda won approval for a plan to expand the city beyond its cramped and unhealthy medieval walls. His design was revolutionary, with a grid of blocks whose corners were cut away to create small octagonal squares, generous space for light, air and gardens in the interior of every block, and an even distribution of markets, schools and hospitals. Property speculation later filled many of those courtyards with buildings, but the essential structure survived, and the Eixample became the showcase of a confident industrial bourgeoisie who commissioned architects to build ever more extravagant houses.

The result is the finest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture in the world, known in Catalonia as Modernisme. Antoni Gaudi's Casa Batllo, with its bone-like balconies and shimmering scaled roof, and Casa Mila, a stone cliff of undulating walls topped by sculpted chimneys, stand within a few hundred metres of each other, alongside works by Puig i Cadafalch and Domenech i Montaner on the block known as the Illa de la Discordia. Rising above everything is the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's unfinished basilica, whose forest of towers and luminous interior draw millions of visitors every year and make it the most visited monument in Spain. The Hospital de Sant Pau, a whole complex of pavilions covered in mosaic and sculpture, is another UNESCO listed masterpiece.

Life in the Eixample is urbane and lively, with tapas bars, vermouth counters, concert halls, cinemas and bookshops, the Gaixample quarter known for its nightlife, and neighbourhood markets that keep an everyday rhythm behind the tourism. The wide pavements of the avenues fill with people every evening.

Several metro lines cross beneath the grid, the main railway stations lie on its edges, and the district has been reshaped in recent years by superblocks that return street space to pedestrians and cycling. The University of Barcelona's historic building and numerous faculties and schools stand within its boundaries.

The Eixample is essential to any visit to Barcelona, combining bold nineteenth-century urban planning with the most inventive architecture Europe produced.