Spain

BARCELONA

Get ready to take a trip through time in miniature - Barcelona's museum models bring the city's history to life on a tiny scale.

If you've ever wished you could shrink down and explore the streets of Barcelona like an ant, these incredible museum models are the next best thing.

Roman city in the 3rd century

According to many sources, the city's foundation probably took place in 3rd century B.C. under the leadership of a Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barkas who named it Barcina at that time. Rome, Moors and even Charlemagne have lived here.

Barcelona has over the years become one of the leading economic and commercial hubs. In 15th century Ferdinand II Aragon married Isabella I Castile and this led to power being shifted to Madrid which became the country's largest city.

During this period, trade with Americas began to grow and attempts were made to centralize power in Madrid. This resulted in Catalans' defeat during the war of 1640-1659.

Barcelona acquired new people during the nineteenth century who formed new neighborhoods (for instance, Eixample District nowadays inhabited by 262,500 individuals).

In the late XIX – early XX century there is construction of Art Nouveau palaces in Barcelona, building of Sagrada Familia cathedral and general revival of Catalan culture.

Throughout The Second World War, the city is inhabited by the fascists as well as a collection of repressions are enforced. A few of these continued until 1975 when Catalonia came to be a freedom and also 5 years later on the very first autonomous Catalan federal government was chosen.

Today the city is extensively checked out by visitors that want the a great deal of neighborhood monoliths. Among one of the most essential besides the Sagrada Familia, are the Güell Park, the Barri Gòtic area plus the middle ages shipyards of Les Drassanes.

The models on this page were sent to us from the Barcelona History Museum (MUHBA).

MUHBA display three models of the whole city of Barcelona.

One model displays the roman city at the 3rd century and two models displays the late medieval city – one for the 13th century and another for the city around 1500. All three models were built in the late 90's.

The museum also display six models of specific areas of the city – late antiquity episcopal buildings (6-7th century, build in 1996), project of the never built 1929's port area, the 1992 olympic village, the seafront of the city in the 21st century, the "Pere IV" urban axis and the urban landscape of the Poble Nou district.

There are also some old models built between 1935-1970, but they are not currently in public display and only in the museum reserve spaces.

Museum visitors can see changes of the ancient and medieval city landscape which were motivated by the historical evolution and urban renovation processes. Some of the medieval and modern age buildings were lost after the siege and defeat of the city at the war of the Spanish Succession in 1714. Part of the city was demolished for building the Ciutadella fortress. The museum also provided us by information that models are fairly popular among their visitors. There was also one special thing about the 13th century medieval city model – it had a videomapping system depicting landmarks, but it was removed during renovating the spaces.

Additional information

Wikipedia

Barcelona Turisme

Technical information

Creator: Not specified
Year of manufacture: 1996, 2018, 90s, 2018, 2010, 2010
Material: Not specified
Dimensions: Not specified

SOURCES:

Rodriguez, Vicente and Connell, Timothy John. "Barcelona". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Mar. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/place/Barcelona. Accessed 22 March 2023.

Wikipedia contributors. "Barcelona." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 Mar. 2023. Web. 27 Mar. 2023.

Tomáš Linhart's request to Daniel Alcubierre, Curator - Barcelona History Museum (MUHBA), Barcelona. E-mail message received 21.07.2022.

Spain

BARCELONA

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