Placa de Catalunya

Less than two centuries ago, this 50,000-square-metre plaza was empty scrubland outside Barcelona's ancient fortifications. The city had been strangled for centuries inside medieval walls that limited its growth, and when those walls finally came down in the 1850s, this open patch became the hinge between the cramped old town and the ambitious new grid of the Eixample. It took decades of political wrangling before anything got built — the square was conceived as part of the Rovira plan in 1859 but didn't receive official government approval until the 1888 Universal Exposition forced the issue.

The plaza took its modern form when it was officially inaugurated on November 2, 1927, and further reshaped for the 1929 International Exposition. Today it's ringed by department stores, banks, and the enormous El Corte Ingles, but its real function is as Barcelona's central compass point. Every major shopping street, tourist route, and transit line converges here. Look down and you'll spot a compass rose inlaid in the pavement.

During the Spanish Civil War, the square was a flashpoint — particularly during the May Days of 1937, when rival Republican factions fought each other in the surrounding streets. More recently, in May 2011, Placa de Catalunya became the epicenter of Spain's Indignados movement, with thousands of anti-austerity protesters camping in the square for weeks.

The plaza's sculptures are an underappreciated open-air gallery spanning Noucentisme to the avant-garde. Josep Clara's "The Goddess" stands at the center, and there are works by Pablo Gargallo and other Catalan sculptors scattered around the perimeter. But most people don't look at the statues — they're too busy navigating the pigeons.