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Sarrià-Sant Gervasi · 24

les Tres Torres

Les Tres Torres began when three houses gave a new name to the former Nena Cases estate; railway, garden villas, clinics and high-value apartment blocks then made a neighbourhood where privacy is highly visible and collective life must be found in the market, library, station and memories of what has gone.

Find the corner of Via Augusta and Vergós and try to identify the heavily altered surviving house linked to the three towers that named the neighbourhood. Do not expect three intact monuments: the difficulty of seeing the origin beneath alterations, blocks and traffic is the clue. Then walk to the site of Camp de Sarrià. A neighbourhood that looks stable replaced houses, gardens and an entire stadium within a few generations. Read that quiet transformation: volume changes while the streets continue to feel calm.

Les Tres Torres is a small neighbourhood between Sarrià, Sant Gervasi-Galvany and la Bonanova. It developed in the early twentieth century as a residential subdivision on the edge of the former municipalities. Rail accelerated its connection to Barcelona and its garden-villa form.

In the second half of the century, many detached houses were replaced by high-value apartment buildings. Trees, private gardens and a low-intensity image remain, but actual density is high and the daytime population includes clinic, school, service and domestic workers.

Where the name comes from

The sector was previously known as Nena Cases, the name of an estate. Between 1901 and 1903, the brothers Romaní and Climent Mas, residents from Sants, built three houses, one for each. They became a popular reference and displaced the older place-name.

One survives in altered form near Via Augusta and Vergós. The name is therefore a miniature urban archive: it preserves three buildings although two have gone and the third is difficult to recognise. The earlier place-name, Nena Cases, retains an older layer of the landscape.

Between Sarrià and Sant Gervasi sectors on the hill edge.

Before the neighbourhood

Fields, vines, farmhouses, streams and large estates lay between Sarrià and Sant Gervasi. Paths followed property and relief. It was a peripheral strip, not an urban centre, which made residential subdivision possible.

Proximity to rail and Sarrià attracted households seeking air, garden and access to Barcelona. The resulting garden suburb was not rural: it depended on modern transport, property development and service labour.

How the streets were made

Early subdivisions opened streets and garden-villa plots. Stations and railway improvements between 1906 and 1916 structured movement. Via Augusta, above the rail corridor, later became the metropolitan spine.

From the mid-twentieth century, planning capacity and land value encouraged villa replacement by apartment buildings. Many structures remain set back behind gardens, so densification does not always look abrupt. The plot, more than the block, is the key unit of reading.

Dates that changed it

  1. Before 1900: the area is known as Nena Cases and retains rural uses and large estates.
  2. 1901–1903: Romaní and Climent Mas build the three towers that give the neighbourhood its name.
  3. 1906–1916: new stations and rail improvements consolidate residential development.
  4. 1923: RCD Espanyol’s Camp de Sarrià opens.
  5. 1921: Sarrià’s annexation integrates the sector into Barcelona; map its earlier relationship with Sant Gervasi carefully.
  6. Mid-twentieth century: educational and health facilities grow and villa replacement intensifies.
  7. 1960s–1990s: high-value apartment buildings transform much of the original garden suburb.
  8. 1997: Camp de Sarrià is demolished after its final match and the land is redeveloped.
  9. Late twentieth–twenty-first century: market, library, clinics and schools act as centralities while plot-by-plot renewal continues.

People and collective life

The Mas brothers explain the name, but builders, gardeners, railway workers, maids, caretakers, teachers, health staff and shopkeepers sustained the development. The garden-house ideal relied on labour that was often outsourced or invisible.

Municipal diagnoses have historically described weaker associational and commercial intensity than in neighbouring districts. This does not mean no community; it describes a morphology favouring private life and distributing meeting points. Market, library, schools, parishes, clubs and station streets matter because they concentrate what private parcels disperse.

People behind the buildings

Romaní and Climent Mas turn an estate into a place-name. Sculptor Josep Clarà is linked to the studio-villa and gardens associated with today’s Biblioteca Clarà; document the building and collection’s exact history.

Camp de Sarrià was more than sports architecture. RCD Espanyol directors, players, workers and supporters made collective memory there for seven decades. Explain club finances, land sale and residential transformation, not only the last match.

Institutions

Mercat de les Tres Torres is the main commercial anchor. Biblioteca Clarà and its gardens provide public cultural space inside a private-property landscape. The FGC station connects residents, workers and students.

Clinics, consulting rooms, schools and private centres create employment and traffic but not always street life. Public services, private services and facilities with community access provide different degrees of common space; institutional density is not the same as common space.

Struggles that left a mark

Demand: The main urban struggle concerns villa and garden replacement. Every plot holds tension among property rights, development capacity, heritage, trees and memory. Protecting only a façade or tree can still destroy the spatial relation that gave the ensemble meaning.

Outcome: Case-by-case decisions

Demand: Camp de Sarrià shows another pressure: an intense, popular facility converted into real-estate value. Do not romanticise the stadium alone; explain debt, ownership, sale and consequences for identity and space.

Outcome:

Demand: There is also a quieter dispute over public space and commerce. Few shops and squares can increase dependence on cars or neighbouring areas. Keeping market, library and walkable routes is a cohesion policy.

Outcome:

What can still be seen

The surviving tower near Via Augusta and Vergós, however altered, is the most direct trace of the name. Tree-lined streets, front gardens, setbacks and a few villas show the first development. Later blocks reveal how densification kept a green appearance.

The market, Biblioteca Clarà, stations and passages are visible centres. At the former Camp de Sarrià site, names, plaques and parcel shapes retain fragments of memory.

What disappeared

Two of the founding towers, many other villas, gardens, fields and the Nena Cases name disappeared from everyday use. Camp de Sarrià vanished completely as a stadium in 1997, leaving a spatial loss that redevelopment makes difficult to see.

Street life can also disappear when a house becomes a gated apartment block or a shop becomes a service with little relation to the street. Density may rise while contact falls.

The neighbourhood today

Les Tres Torres had 16,341 residents in 2026, 207.4 residents per hectare, a €49,258 mean census-section income in 2023, 78.8 hectares, and 14.4% of residents held non-Spanish nationality. It is among Barcelona’s highest-income neighbourhoods, but its density shows it is not simply isolated mansions.

The daytime population rises through schools, clinics, consulting rooms, domestic labour and services. Analyse the movement of workers and users, not only car-owning residents.

Non-Spanish nationality (2026): 14.4%

What is changing

Transformation continues incrementally: replacement and extension, luxury refurbishment, basements and parking, clinic and school change, commercial renewal. The sum of private decisions can alter permeability, tree cover and social profile without one grand project.

Traffic calming, pavements, the market, civic facilities and heritage change gradually. Older municipal studies explain structure, while present conditions depend on current data.

What the guides leave out

They ignore it due to the lack of a dominant monument. It precisely shows how well-to-do Barcelona densified without abandoning the language of tower and garden.

They omit Camp de Sarrià, Nena Cases, surviving tower and work on housing, schools and clinics. They confuse private green with public and silence with absence of conflict.

Read it on foot

Start: Les Tres Torres (FGC) · End: Neighbourhood centres

Walking (excluding stop time): 14 min · 1060 m · Estimated visit (with stops): 49 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
Traces of the three towers
Via Augusta 324 - 334
Look for altered traces of the houses that named the neighbourhood rather than three intact towers
41.39918, 2.12504
2
Garden streets and apartment blocks
Carrer de Ganduxer 117
leg: 830 m · 11 min
Compare gardens, walls and low houses with the apartment blocks that replaced many estates
41.40172, 2.13219
3
Market, library and civic memory
Carrer de Ganduxer 85 - 105
leg: 230 m · 3 min
Read the market, library, station and memory of the former stadium as places of collective life
41.39993, 2.13357

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

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