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Eixample · 07

la Dreta de l'Eixample

La Dreta de l'Eixample is the central sector of Cerdà's Eixample, where Barcelona's bourgeoisie built modernista homes around Passeig de Gràcia, and it takes its name from lying to the right of the Sarrià railway that once ran down Carrer de Balmes.[1][2][3][4]

On the corner of Passeig de Gràcia and Carrer del Consell de Cent, three buildings by rival architects stand side by side, and their façades gave the block its name: the Illa de la Discòrdia. A few streets away, Passatge Permanyer keeps a row of low houses with front courtyards, built where Cerdà's plan had foreseen a green interior.[5][6][3]

The Dreta occupies the central part of the Eixample, and the City Council describes it as the bourgeois quarter that brought modernisme into its homes and as the sector where the Cerdà project began. Passeig de Gràcia, with the Illa de la Discòrdia, runs through it, and so does the district headquarters, at Carrer d'Aragó 311.[3][4]

Between 1860 and 1890 the area around the avenue was a quarter of villas and large mansions with gardens. The 1891 ordinances allowed more building volume and loosened the rules on façades, which made it profitable to pull down many villas and put up apartment buildings, while commerce gradually followed the bourgeoisie to the avenue.[5]

la Dreta de l'Eixample (neighbourhood 07) highlighted. Other neighbourhoods in Eixample: l'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample, la Nova Esquerra de l'Eixample, Sant Antoni, el Fort Pienc, la Sagrada Família.

Where the name comes from

Etymology: certain[1][2]

The name comes from the sector's position within the Eixample: it lay to the right of the Sarrià-Barcelona railway that ran down Carrer de Balmes and was later buried. This is the derivation given by Catalan Wikipedia, whose article asks for better references; English Wikipedia says only that the neighbourhood lies to the east (the “right”) of Carrer de Balmes.[1][2]

It covers the part of the Eixample roughly between Passeig de Sant Joan or Carrer de Nàpols on one side and Carrer de Balmes on the other, and borders la Sagrada Família, el Fort Pienc, l'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample and the districts of Gràcia and Ciutat Vella.[1]

How the streets were made

Cerdà's plan cut the corners of the blocks into chamfers, allowed building on only one or two sides of each block with the rest left as garden, and limited houses to three floors (16 m) and little depth: Cerdà believed that health depended on living in well-lit homes ringed by garden air.[3]

Passatge Permanyer shows what happened to those gardens. In 1864 a company had most of one block developed with small English-style houses, each with a front courtyard, and that typology made buildable the interior that the plan had set aside as green space. The work was by Jeroni Granell i Barrera; the passage is named after the jurist Francesc Permanyer i Tuyet (1817-1864), and some of the original houses have been replaced or altered by added floors.[6][3]

Dates that changed it

  1. 1864 the company El Ensanche y Mejora de Barcelona commissions the houses of Passatge Permanyer from Jeroni Granell i Barrera.[6][3]
  2. 1887-1888 the Mercat de la Concepció is built, designed by Antoni Rovira i Trias.[7]
  3. 1891 new ordinances raise permitted building volume and loosen the rules on façades.[5]
  4. 1902 a railway halt opens at the crossing of Carrer d'Aragó and Passeig de Gràcia.[5]
  5. 1904-1906 Antoni Gaudí rebuilds Casa Batlló for Josep Batlló i Casanovas.[8]
  6. 1905-1906 Passeig de Gràcia is paved and the trams move to the side carriageways.[5]
  7. 1985 the Torre de les Aigües becomes the first block interior opened in the Eixample.[4]
  8. 1990 the Fundació Antoni Tàpies opens in the former Montaner i Simon publishing house.[9][10]
  9. 2005 Casa Batlló is added to the World Heritage list.[8]
  10. 2023-2025 the courts rule on the Consell de Cent green axis.[11][12][13]

People and collective life

Josep Batlló i Casanovas

Textile industrialist who bought the property at Passeig de Gràcia 43 in 1903 with his wife Amàlia Godó i Belaunzaran and commissioned its rebuilding from Gaudí.[8]

Francesc Permanyer i Tuyet

Jurist (1817-1864) who gives the passage its name; he died in the year the development was commissioned.[6][3]

Antoni Rovira i Trias

Architect of the Mercat de la Concepció, built in 1887-1888.[7]

Antoni Tàpies

Painter (1923-2012) who founded the foundation in 1984 and donated much of its collection; the building opened in 1990.[9][10]

Institutions

Mercat de la Concepció

Covered market on a basilica plan, with a central nave 20 m wide and 13.45 m high on cast-iron pillars, built in 1887-1888 and extensively renovated in 1996-1998.[7]

Museu Tàpies

Museum and cultural centre at Carrer d'Aragó 255, devoted to the work of Antoni Tàpies; formerly the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, it is housed in the former Montaner i Simon publishing house.[9][10]

Torre de les Aigües

First block interior opened in the Eixample (1985); its summer pool, the so-called Eixample beach, closed in 2018-19.[4]

What can still be seen

Illa de la Discòrdia

Five rebuilt buildings on Passeig de Gràcia: Lleó i Morera, Mulleras, Amatller, Delfina Bonet and Batlló. Casa Amatller is a national cultural asset of interest and Casa Batlló is also a World Heritage site.[5]

Passatge Permanyer

Block-interior passage listed as a local cultural asset of interest, with low houses of symmetrical façades and a front courtyard.[6][3]

What disappeared

Villas and shops of Passeig de Gràcia

Villas and mansions such as those of Sama, Robert, Marianao and Marcet once lined the avenue; Gaudí's decoration of the Gibert pharmacy and the Torino bar no longer exists.[5]

The neighbourhood today

La Dreta de l'Eixample had 45,464 residents in 2026, a density of 214.5 inhabitants per hectare, a mean census-section income of €35,332 in 2023, an area of 212.0 hectares and 33.2% of residents of non-Spanish nationality.[14][15][16][17]

Non-Spanish nationality (2026): 33.2%

What is changing

Consell de Cent: the green axis in the courts (as of October 2026)

The City Council rebuilt Carrer del Consell de Cent as a green axis. In September 2023 a Barcelona court, on an appeal by the traders' association Barcelona Oberta, ordered the stretch between Casanova and Bruc to be restored to its earlier state, reasoning that the works in practice changed the Pla General Metropolità. The TSJC dismissed the city's appeal in March 2025 and the city announced a further appeal. Another court, by contrast, upheld the redesign of the crossing with Girona in October 2024. We found no later report giving a final answer on the last appeal.[11][12][13]

What the guides leave out

A prize contest, caught in a cartoon

In 1905 L'Esquella de la Torratxa printed a cartoon in which a bourgeois gentleman, asked who will build his house (Domènech, Gaudí or Puig i Cadafalch), answers: whoever wins the contest. It was the City Council's annual prize for artistic buildings, held from 1899 to 1906.[5]

A sock almost 3 metres high

On the terrace of the Museu Tàpies stands Mitjó, the reduced version of an 18 m sculpture proposed in 1991 for the Oval Hall of the Palau Nacional on Montjuïc (MNAC), which the museum's board rejected.[9][10]

Read it on foot

Start: Passeig de Gràcia (L2/L3/L4) · End: Mercat de la Concepció[7]

Walking (excluding stop time): 16 min · 1230 m · Estimated visit (with stops): 54 min

The geometry follows the pedestrian network between the four marked points, but it has not been verified as step-free. The approach from public transport is not included in the stated distance.

la Dreta de l'Eixample (neighbourhood 07) highlighted. Other neighbourhoods in Eixample: l'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample, la Nova Esquerra de l'Eixample, Sant Antoni, el Fort Pienc, la Sagrada Família.

1
Casa Batlló
Casa Batlló, Passeig de Gràcia 43
Walk the pavement from the corner of Carrer del Consell de Cent to Casa Batlló and notice how the façade changes from one building to the next within the same block.[5][8]
Casa Lleó Morera (Domènech i Montaner), Casa Amatller (Puig i Cadafalch) and Casa Batlló (Gaudí) make up the Illa de la Discòrdia; the name plays on the Greek myth of the apple of discord and on the architects' rivalry, and the satirical press popularised it. Gaudí rebuilt Casa Batlló from 1904 for the textile industrialist Josep Batlló i Casanovas.[5][8]
Coordinates
41.39154, 2.16470 · OpenStreetMap
2
Museu Tàpies
Museu Tàpies, Carrer d'Aragó 255
120 m · 2 min
Look up to the top of the façade, where Antoni Tàpies's sculpture Núvol i cadira sits on the former publishing house.[9][10]
The building was the seat of the Montaner i Simon publishing house. Tàpies founded the foundation in 1984; the building opened in June 1990 after a refurbishment by Roser Amadó and Lluís Domènech i Girbau, and reopened in 2010 after a second one; today it is called the Museu Tàpies.[9][10]
Coordinates
41.39162, 2.16366 · OpenStreetMap
3
Passatge Permanyer
Passatge Permanyer, Carrer de Pau Claris 114
570 m · 8 min
Notice the courtyard in front of each house, crossed by a small stepped bridge, and the house number on each parapet, the only element that changes from one house to the next.[6][3]
These English-style houses date from 1864 and occupy the interior of a block that Cerdà's plan had reserved as green space. The passage is named after the jurist Francesc Permanyer i Tuyet; some original buildings have been replaced or altered by added floors.[6][3]
Coordinates
41.39243, 2.16864 · OpenStreetMap
4
Mercat de la Concepció
Mercat de la Concepció, Carrer d'Aragó 311 bis
530 m · 7 min
Look at the three double-pitched façade sections on Carrer de València and Carrer d'Aragó, which show the three-nave structure inside, and at the zigzag roof of glazed tiles.[7]
Antoni Rovira i Trias designed it and it was built in 1887-1888, with 84 cast-iron pillars and a structure by La Maquinista Terrestre i Marítima; in 1996-1998 it was extensively renovated, with a new basement for parking.[7]
Coordinates
41.39588, 2.16863 · OpenStreetMap

Sources for this page

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

  1. [1] Viquipèdia (2026). Dreta de l'Eixample. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  2. [2] Wikipedia (2026). Dreta de l'Eixample. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  3. [3] Ajuntament de Barcelona (2026). El districte i els seus barris (L'Eixample). Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  4. [4] Ajuntament de Barcelona (2026). La Dreta de l'Eixample (L'Eixample). Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  5. [5] Viquipèdia (2026). Illa de la Discòrdia. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  6. [6] Viquipèdia (2026). Passatge Permanyer. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  7. [7] Viquipèdia (2026). Mercat de la Concepció. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  8. [8] Viquipèdia (2026). Casa Batlló. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  9. [9] Viquipèdia (2026). Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Museu Tàpies). Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  10. [10] Fundació Antoni Tàpies (n.d.). Mitjó (collection record). Accessed: 2026-10-09.
  11. [11] 3Cat Info (2023-09-07). La justícia ordena desmantellar l'eix verd del Consell de Cent de Barcelona. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  12. [12] Nació Digital (2025-03-15). El TSJC confirma la sentència contra l'eix verd del Consell de Cent. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  13. [13] Línia Eixample / ACN (2024-10-01). La justícia avala l'eix verd de Consell de Cent amb Girona. Accessed: 2026-10-03.
  14. [14] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2026-01-01). Padró municipal d'habitants (pad_mdbas) — població per barri. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  15. [15] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2021). Densitat de població per barri. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  16. [16] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2023). Renda disponible de les llars per persona. Seccions censals. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  17. [17] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2026-01-01). Població per nacionalitat i sexe. Barris. Accessed: 2026-07-17.

Last reviewed: 3 October 2026 · 17 sources consulted

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