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Eixample · 09

la Nova Esquerra de l'Eixample

The western Eixample where a factory became a campus, a prison a memory site and an abattoir a park: a later and denser grid shaped by industry, technical education, control, rail movement and housing.

Enter Escola Industrial from Carrer d’Urgell. Behind the urban frontage appear sheds, courts, brick, vaults and facilities: the form of a factory reused for teaching. Then compare it with La Model’s wall or the openness of Parc de Joan Miró. Nova Esquerra reads as a sequence of large compounds interrupting and reprogramming the grid.

La Nova Esquerra de l’Eixample extends the mesh west toward Sants, Les Corts and rail corridors. “Nova” does not mean a recent or homogeneous city. It marks the sector consolidated later than Antiga Esquerra, combining Cerdà housing, twentieth-century blocks, converted factories, educational institutions, a major historic prison, parks and streets subject to the gravity of Sants station.

Its history thickens the usual image of bourgeois Eixample. Here the grid absorbed factory labour, technical training, prison discipline, an abattoir, warehouses and regional movement. Many uses disappeared or changed, but still determine parcel size, walls, courts and flows.

Where the name comes from

“Nova Esquerra” distinguishes this part of the left Eixample from the centre-facing Antiga Esquerra. The administrative division was formalised in 2006, but reflects a historical pattern: building and densification arrived later in the west.

The name can conceal older memories. This is not new extension without a past, but an administrative layer over fields, roads, factories, institutions and compounds predating many current apartment blocks.

Toward Sants-Montjuïc, Les Corts approaches, Antiga Esquerra and rail corridors.

Before the neighbourhood

Before urbanisation were the plain, roads to Sants and Les Corts, agriculture and land progressively occupied by industry. Distance from the walled city and proximity to rail and major approaches favoured uses needing larger plots or generating nuisance.

The Batlló textile factory, later Escola Industrial, is a decisive piece. Workshops, stores and other productive installations coexisted with housing. The grid did not erase industry at once: it enclosed, fragmented, reused and displaced it.

How the streets were made

Cerdà projected the same broad logic of blocks and chamfers, but implementation met large compounds, lines and older roads. Twentieth-century blocks often have greater depth, height and density. Near Sants, Tarragona, Entença and Numància carry movement beyond neighbourhood scale.

Large institutions produce a second geometry. Escola Industrial occupies several blocks with internal streets and courts. La Model imposed continuous walls and panoptic organisation. Parc de Joan Miró opened public space on the abattoir site. Each cuts, closes or reopens the grid differently.

Dates that changed it

  1. Late nineteenth century: industrial and residential expansion westward.
  2. 1860s–1870s: Early construction and operation of the Can Batlló factory complex, later the Escola Industrial; its precise chronology is preserved in heritage records.
  3. 1904: La Model prison opens with a centralised surveillance design.
  4. Early twentieth century: housing, technical education and services consolidate; density grows.
  5. 1979–1983: the old abattoir is dismantled and today’s Parc de Joan Miró opens.
  6. 2006: official administrative division of Antiga and Nova Esquerra.
  7. 2017: La Model closes as a prison.
  8. 2010s–2020s: phased debate and works around La Model, traffic calming, schools and housing.

People and collective life

Textile workers, mechanics, technicians, students and teachers explain the productive and educational inheritance. Factory and school share a material idea: knowledge attached to tools, workshops, laboratories and trades. Sports and educational facilities maintain a large daytime population.

La Model introduces ordinary and political prisoners, guards, lawyers, waiting families and movements opposing repression, execution, torture and prison conditions. Memory should not collapse into a list of famous inmates. It belongs to thousands of anonymous lives and to campaigns for facilities, affordable housing, greenery and a public memory site.

People behind the buildings

Can Batlló and Escola Industrial allow a reading of factory architecture, vaults, iron, brick and institutional adaptation. Rafael Guastavino matters to the early complex, but later transformation belongs to many architects, engineers, authorities and schools.

La Model was designed by Josep Domènech i Estapà and Salvador Vinyals i Sabaté with radial surveillance. Parc de Joan Miró is a post-dictatorship urban operation on abattoir land. Joan Miró’s Dona i ocell is a landmark, but daily value lies in open space, shade, play and connection toward Sants.

Institutions

Escola Industrial groups educational, sporting and administrative facilities inside a former factory landscape. La Model is now a memory site and a major transformation project still divided into phases. Parc de Joan Miró is green and civic infrastructure in a dense area.

Schools, nearby libraries, health facilities, markets, associations and sports complete the institutional landscape. Sants station, whether on the seam or outside a particular boundary, acts as mobility infrastructure shaping hotels, taxis, buses, shops and traffic far beyond the station.

Struggles that left a mark

Demand: Through-traffic related to Sants and major axes competes with local life. Demands for calmer streets, trees, pavements and safe school routes aim to reduce friction. Moving traffic from one street to another is not necessarily reduction; document area and effects.

Outcome: Gradual pacification projects

Demand: La Model concentrates a land-allocation struggle: memory, park, affordable housing, schools and facilities. Separate promises from delivered works. Housing is the wider pressure: centrality and connections raise prices, while large public compounds generate expectation and speculation.

Outcome:

What can still be seen

At Escola Industrial, Can Batlló sheds, vaults, courts and layers of educational reuse remain legible. La Model’s walls, galleries and radial centre make control architecture visible. At Parc de Joan Miró, openness reveals the scale of the former abattoir and the shift from productive to service and leisure city. Residential chamfers continue, but large compounds and routes change their rhythm.

Grid edges

Where Cerdà meets older roads

What disappeared

Factories and workshops were demolished or converted. The abattoir disappeared as building and function for the park. La Model ceased to be a prison in 2017, while material and memory remain. Block interiors, stores and productive ground floors became parking, housing, offices or shops. The editorial task is to show the production beneath a mainly residential appearance.

The neighbourhood today

La Nova Esquerra had 59,117 residents in 2026, a density of 440.8 inhabitants per hectare, a €29,378 mean census-section income in 2023, an area of 134.1 hectares, and 24.9% of residents held non-Spanish nationality. It is among the Eixample’s densest residential sectors while containing unusually large compounds.

Non-Spanish nationality (2026): 24.9%

What is changing

What is changing

The relationship with Sants changes through railway work, mobility and street redesign. Escola Industrial updates educational and sporting uses. La Model advances in phases, so state what is open, under construction, approved or merely planned. Schools and services must keep pace with density. Shade and green space gain climate urgency.

What the guides leave out

Nova Esquerra is not just a later grid. It is an archive of large institutions: factory, school, prison, abattoir, park and station. Each organised labour, discipline, food, movement or leisure at urban scale. The useful question is not “which modernista façade?”, but “which compound made this void, wall or flow?”.

Student flows

Education as urban economy

Read it on foot

Start: Entença / Hospital Clínic west · End: Sants edge

Walking (excluding stop time): 11 min · 790 m · Estimated visit (with stops): 11 min

The geometry follows the pedestrian network between the three marked points, but it has not been verified as step-free. Check access conditions, works and opening hours before setting out. The approach from public transport is not included in the stated distance.

1
Escola Industrial complex
Carrer d'Entença 136
Read factory, school, courtyard and technical culture in one site. Access to the interior spaces depends on public opening hours
This stop anchors the walk in an everyday neighbourhood landmark.
41.38185, 2.14784
2
Sports and school facilities
Carrer de València 100
leg: 300 m · 4 min
Compare the sports and school facilities with the residential streets around them
This stop anchors the walk in an everyday neighbourhood landmark.
41.38286, 2.15043
3
Escola Industrial
Carrer de València 9
leg: 490 m · 7 min
From the edge of Escola Industrial, compare the campus wall with the continuity of the residential grid
This stop anchors the walk in an everyday neighbourhood landmark.
41.38006, 2.14635

Sources for this page

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

  1. [1] Ajuntament de Barcelona — CartoBCN (2006+). Unitats administratives de la ciutat de Barcelona — límits de barris. Type: cartography. Locator: cartobcn-barris. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  2. [2] Ajuntament de Barcelona (2006). Nova divisió territorial de Barcelona en districtes i barris. Type: municipal_reference. Locator: divisio-2006. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  3. [3] 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.
  4. [4] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2021). Densitat de població per barri. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: densitat-2021. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  5. [5] 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.
  6. [6] 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.
  7. [7] Joan Busquets (2005). Barcelona: the urban evolution of a compact city. Type: book. Locator: busquets-barcelona. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  8. [8] Ajuntament de Barcelona / Fabra i Coats Fàbrica de Creació (n.d.). Fabra i Coats — fàbrica i reutilització cultural. Type: industrial_heritage. Locator: fabra-coats. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  9. [9] MUHBA / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). MUHBA — Museu d'Història de Barcelona (publicacions i jaciments). Type: museum. Locator: muhba. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  10. [10] AHCB / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona — fons i cartografia. Type: archive. Locator: ahcb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  11. [11] Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Catàleg de patrimoni arquitectònic de Barcelona. Type: heritage_catalogue. Locator: heritage-catalog. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  12. [12] FAVB (n.d.). Federació d'Associacions de Veïns i Veïnes de Barcelona. Type: civil_society. Locator: favb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  13. [13] AMCB / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Arxiu Municipal Contemporani de Barcelona. Type: archive. Locator: amcb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  14. [14] Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Nomenclàtor dels carrers de Barcelona. Type: gazetteer. Locator: nomenclator-bcn. Accessed: 2026-07-17.

Last reviewed: 17 July 2026 · 14 sources consulted

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