Plaça Reial Grand square with Gaudí Lamp Posts
Grand Plaza on site of former monastery, built 1848. Known for nightlife, restaurants, Antoni Gaudí lamp posts & Font de les Tres Gràcies fountain
About Plaça Reial Grand square with Gaudí Lamp posts
The Plaça Reial was conceived to be Barcelona's main and grandest square when it was built in the middle of the nineteenth century and is today a popular congregating point for locals and visitors.
Barcelona's Plaça Reial is a relatively new space with the site originally being occupied until 1835 by the Capuchin convent of Santa Madrona (built 1718). The Capuchin convent buildings were demolished in 1835 on official orders, leaving a large empty space for the new square.
The Barcelona city council at the time decided to create Barcelona's new main square here copying the style of many cities in Spain with buildings that could attract Barcelona's industrial bourgeoisie.
In 1848 architect Francesc Daniel Molina i Casamajó was commissioned to build the newly named Plaça Reial square (Royal square) by the city of Barcelona in honour of the recently deceased Spanish Monarch Ferdinand VII. There was even a plan to place an equestrian statue of Ferdinand VII in the centre of the square but the space was instead filed by the fountain Font de les Tres Gràcies, created by Antoine Durnne, from Paris.
Molina i Casamajó designed the Plaça Reial as a rectangular space surrounded by stately buildings with wide colonnades on the ground floor that would be occupied by businesses that would serve the square's inhabitants. At the end of the twentieth century the colonnades have been taken over by bars, restaurants and night clubs, which makes the Plaça Reial one of Barcelona's popular night hotspots.
The ornate lamp posts added to the square were designed by Antoni Gaudí in the early years of his career and were his first commission for the city of Barcelona. They were installed in 1879 and are crowned by a winged helmet and a dragon. The lamps were originally designed to run on town gas produced at the Gas factory in Barceloneta.
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