Barcelona, barri a barri A living atlas of the 73 neighbourhoods
Menu

Horta-Guinardó · 34

Can Baró

Can Baró is a hillside neighbourhood where a seventeenth-century rebuilt farmhouse, quarries, journalists’ houses, shantytowns, anti-aircraft batteries and cooperative blocks share one hill; the view only makes sense when the people who built, inhabited and climbed the slope are visible too.

Begin in Plaça de Can Baró, outside the farmhouse, not at the viewpoint. Its 1674 lintel records reconstruction of an earlier building linked by local research to damage in the 1652 siege. Then climb slowly: every shift from low house to block, street to stair and quarry to square expresses a different housing policy.

Can Baró extends between Ronda del Guinardó and Turó de la Rovira. Its form is vertical and fragmented: old estate, small-house developments, self-building, large schemes, quarries and defence or memory sites.

The hilltop postcard hides people climbing with shopping, pushchairs, reduced mobility or work shifts. Distance here is gradient, steps, bus frequency and shade.

Where the name comes from

Can means house or estate. Baró has been linked to eighteenth-century noble ownership and Ramon Fèlix d’Ivorra i Salvà, baron of Cervelló, who local research says sold the estate in 1737. Do not simplify it into a continuous family surname.

Notarial records should establish the ownership chain.

Between Guinardó, Carmel approaches and hill streets.

Before the neighbourhood

The hill holds history earlier than modern urbanisation. Archaeology has identified Iberian occupation around Turó de la Rovira and its quarries. Fields, vines, woodland and the Can Baró estate followed.

Local studies document Font de Can Baró at least in the eighteenth century. Water and terrain determined paths, walls and settlement.

How the streets were made

There was no single operation: small garden houses, self-built homes, blocks over quarry land and later roads coexist.

Cases dels Periodistes, from around 1918, introduced a middle-class garden-city form. Six Font Castellana towers, occupied from 1971, provided 338 cooperative or social homes.

Dates that changed it

  1. Antiquity: Iberian occupation; define sites and chronology.
  2. 1652: the predecessor farmhouse may have been damaged during the siege; verify.
  3. 1674: reconstruction date on the lintel.
  4. 1737: estate sale by the baron of Cervelló; confirm notarial source.
  5. From 1918: Cases dels Periodistes and garden-house development.
  6. 1937: anti-aircraft battery installed.
  7. Post-war: Los Cañones, Raimon Casellas and Francesc Alegre shantytowns grow.
  8. 1971: Font Castellana occupancy begins.
  9. 1980s–1990: rehousing and removal of last shacks; date each settlement.
  10. Twenty-first century: heritage interpretation and severe visitor pressure.

People and collective life

Farmers, quarry workers, builders, shack residents, cooperators, journalists, service workers and migrants inhabited different layers. Self-builders made home, path, network and claim simultaneously.

Associations demanded water, sewers, paving, transport, schools and decent rehousing. Today they address access, housing, visitors and Tres Turons planning.

People behind the buildings

The farmhouse connects tenant farmers and agricultural labour with its present educational use and pupils.

Font Castellana includes Graciense de Viviendas cooperators, resident families and builders. On the Turó, defence personnel and later families excluded from formal housing occupied the same infrastructure for opposite purposes.

Institutions

The square and farmhouse form a historic centre. Schools, local facilities and buses sustain vertical everyday life.

Turó de la Rovira is archaeological site, landscape, war heritage, shantytown memory and visitor destination. MUHBA and the city must hold all layers together.

Struggles that left a mark

Demand: Shantytown history includes self-building, support networks, discrimination, deliberate lack of services and rehousing struggles. Separate each settlement’s chronology.

Outcome: Some city programmes

Demand: Tres Turons planning, expropriation, housing conservation, viewpoint pressure and vertical access remain open. Opening restrictions are volatile and require official dates.

Outcome:

What can still be seen

The farmhouse, walls, low houses, gardens, stairs and lanes show earlier Can Baró. Font Castellana introduces another scale; rock cuts reveal quarry geology.

Battery structures and interpreted traces of shantytown life remain on the Turó. The celebrated view was also a defence position and a home for families without formal housing.

What disappeared

Crops, active quarries, water traces, self-built houses and shantytowns disappeared. Memories, family networks and unequal access did not.

Blocks and roads interrupted landscape continuity; vegetation can also hide remains without care.

The neighbourhood today

Can Baró had 9,645 residents in 2026, 251.2 people per hectare, mean census-section income of €23,797 in 2023, 38.4 hectares, and 22.1% non-Spanish nationality.

The average density disguises concentrated settlement and steep inequalities of access within a few streets.

Non-Spanish nationality (2026): 22.1%

What is changing

Small houses are renovated or replaced; the price of views presses on fabric made through need and cooperation. Heat, drought and fire risk make the slope harder.

Turó management, Tres Turons schemes, lifts, buses and housing projects must state whether proposed, approved, under construction or open.

What the guides leave out

The guides go to the “bunkers”. They omit that they are remains of a battery, and they erase farmhouses, quarries, cooperatives, barracks and daily climbs.

The view brings together war, exclusion, working-class memory and tourist consumption.

Read it on foot

Start: Can Baró neighbourhood core · End: Font Castellana

Walking (excluding stop time): 15 min · 1130 m · Estimated visit (with stops): 45 min

The geometry follows the pedestrian network between the three marked points, but it has not been verified as step-free. This neighbourhood has steep gradients: check steps, lifts, works and access conditions before setting out. The approach from public transport is not included in the stated distance.

1
Farmhouse, square and memory of the name
Plaça de la Font Castellana 5
Observe how the place-name and central spaces retain the memory of an earlier estate.
41.41500, 2.16573
2
Housing adapted to the slope
Carrer de Marià Labèrnia 59
leg: 880 m · 12 min
Read steps, walls and housing types as responses to difficult topography.
41.41948, 2.16238
3
Civic facilities and everyday connections
Carrer de Marià Labèrnia 14D
leg: 250 m · 3 min
Compare local facilities with routes that overcome vertical distance.
41.41966, 2.16432

Sources for this page

Dates, figures and historical claims are linked to the records used for this page.

  1. [1] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2026-01-01). Padró municipal d'habitants (pad_mdbas) — població per barri. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: pad-sexe-2026. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  2. [2] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2021). Densitat de població per barri. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: densitat-2021. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  3. [3] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2023). Renda disponible de les llars per persona. Seccions censals. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: renda-2023. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  4. [4] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2026-01-01). Població per nacionalitat i sexe. Barris. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: pad-nac-2026. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  5. [5] Joan Busquets (2005). Barcelona: the urban evolution of a compact city. Type: book. Locator: busquets-barcelona. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  6. [6] MUHBA / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). MUHBA — Museu d'Història de Barcelona (publicacions i jaciments). Type: museum. Locator: muhba. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  7. [7] AHCB / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona — fons i cartografia. Type: archive. Locator: ahcb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  8. [8] Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Catàleg de patrimoni arquitectònic de Barcelona. Type: heritage_catalogue. Locator: heritage-catalog. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  9. [9] FAVB (n.d.). Federació d'Associacions de Veïns i Veïnes de Barcelona. Type: civil_society. Locator: favb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  10. [10] AMCB / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Arxiu Municipal Contemporani de Barcelona. Type: archive. Locator: amcb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  11. [11] Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Nomenclàtor dels carrers de Barcelona. Type: gazetteer. Locator: nomenclator-bcn. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  12. [12] TMB (n.d.). Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona — xarxa de metro. Type: transport. Locator: tmb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.

Last reviewed: 17 July 2026 · 12 sources consulted

Return to top