LibGuides: Design (DESN, FIND): Barcelona, Spain

Welcome to the Design in Barcelona Field School 2024 Library Guide

Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina Barcelona by Felix König licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

(Barcelona) Palau Nacional - National Museum of Art of Catalunya by Didier Descouens licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

Exterior of the Església de Sant Francesc de Sales (Barcelona) by Didier Descouens licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

Barcelona districtes; public domain

Barcelona Raval by Jorge Franganillo licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

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Barcelona: The Urban Evolution of a Compact City by Joan Busquets
Barcelona can be regarded as a prototype of a European Mediterranean city with a long urban tradition. As such, it has undergone a specific process of historic formation: density and compactness of urban form, evolution by extension rather than by reform, etc.
Barcelona: Visual Culture, Space and Power by Helena Buffery (Editor)
This fully illustrated, edited volume brings together fresh insights into the changing urban space of Barcelona from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day, exploring the relationship between art and culture and the cityscape.
Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Familia : Antoni Gaudi by Mark Burry
The Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Familia is Gaudi's undoubted masterpiece. It charts the styles the architect evolved during his career. At the crypt level a Gothic design is used, but as the building climbs towards the sky the structure passes through an Art Nouveau stage before becoming more surreal and fanciful, finishing in four intricately carved, open-work cone-shaped spires.
Obsession, Aesthetics, and the Iberian City: The Partial Madness of Modern Urban Culture
In social terms, this nineteenth-century city is the product of a specialist class of planners engaged in what urban theorist Henri Lefebvre has called the bourgeois science of modern urbanism. One thinks first of the large scale and the wide boulevards of Baron Georges von Haussmann's Paris or the geometrical planning vision of Ildefons Cerdà's Barcelona. The modern science of urban design famously inaugurates a new way of thinking the city; urban modernity is now defined by the triumph of exchange value over use value, and the lived city is eclipsed by the planned city as it is envisioned by capitalists, builders, and speculators.
Thinking Barcelona: Ideologies of a Global City by Edgar Illas
Studies the ideological work that redefined Barcelona during the 1980s and adapted the city to a new economy of tourism, culture, and services. The 1992 Olympic Games offered to the municipal government a double opportunity to establish an internal consensus and launch Barcelona as a happy combination of European cosmopolitanism and Mediterranean rootedness. The staging of this municipal "euphoric postpolitics," which entailed an extensive process of urban renewal, connects with the similarly exultant contexts of a reviving Catalan nation, post-transitional Spain, and post-Cold War globalization.
Transforming Barcelona: The Renewal of a European Metropolis by Tim Marshall (Editor)
This unique book, written by local experts in the city, deals with the transformation of Barcelona during the last twenty years. Barcelona has been held up as a model of urban planning and economic regeneration amongst built environment professionals. The redesign of square parks and streets throughout the city in the 1980s first attracted attention and praise and then the 1992 Olympics hosted in the city raised international awareness.

Barcelona: An Urban History of Science and Modernity, 1888-1929 by Oliver Hochadel; Agustí Nieto-Galan
The four decades between the two Universal Exhibitions of 1888 and 1929 were formative in the creation of modern Barcelona. This book recovers the richness and complexity of the scientific culture of end of the century Barcelona. The authors explore a broad range of topics: zoological gardens, natural history museums, amusement parks, new medical specialities, the scientific practices of anarchists and spiritists, the medical geography of the urban underworld, early mass media, domestic electricity and astronomical observatories.
Barcelona: Visual Culture, Space and Power by Helena Buffery (Editor)
This fully illustrated, edited volume brings together fresh insights into the changing urban space of Barcelona from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day, exploring the relationship between art and culture and the cityscape.
Barcelonan Okupas: Squatter Power! by Stephen Luis Vilaseca
Combines close-readings of the representations of Spanish squatters known as okupas with the study of everyday life, built environment, and city planning in Barcelona. Vilaseca broadens the scope of Spanish cultural studies by integrating into it notions of embodied cognition and affect that respond to the city before and against the fixed relations of capitalism. Social transformation, as demonstrated by the okupas, is possible when city and art interrelate, not through capital or the urbanization of consciousness but through bodily thought.
The Barcelona Reader: Cultural Readings of a City
Brings together a selection of the best academic articles, written in English, about the city, and its main elements of identity and interest: art, urban planning, history and social movements. The book includes scholarly essays about Barcelona that can be of interest to the student and the general public alike. The Barcelona Reader offers a multifaceted assessment that will be essential reading for anyone interested in this iconic city.
Catalonia : A Cultural History by Michael Eaude
Michael Eaude traces Catalonia's history and its monuments: Roman Tarragona, celebrated by the poet Martial; Greek Empuries, lost for centuries beneath the sands; medieval Romanesque architecture in the Vall de Boi churches and Poblet and Santes Creus monasteries. He also explores the region's artistic legacy: the young Picasso painting Barcelona's vibrant slums; Salvador Dali, inspired by the twisted rocks of Cap de Creus to paint his landscapes of the human mind; and Joan Miro, discovering the colours of the red earth at Montroig.
Jazz Age Barcelona by Robert A. Davidson
Using periodicals and recently rediscovered archival material, Davidson considers the relationship between the political pressures of a brutal class war, the grasp of a repressive dictatorship, and the engagement of the city's young intellectuals with Barcelona's culture and environment.

Barcelona, City of Margins by Olga Sendra Ferrer
Barcelona, City of Margins studies the creation of a space of dissent during the 1950s and 1960s that became the pillar of the protest movements in the final years of the Franco dictatorship and the transition to democracy. This space of dissent took shape in the margins of what is considered the official space of the city of Barcelona, revealing the interconnection of urbanism, literature, and photography in the formation of the political, social, and cultural movements to come in the seventies.
Barcelona, the Left and the Independence Movement in Catalonia by Richard Gillespie
This book examines the extent to which the political project of the Comuns has brought radical change in Barcelona, where it has faced opposition from revolutionary anti-capitalists, traditional Catalan nationalists and　independentistas, as well as conservative political and economic forces. It also considers the Comuns' relationship to Podemos and their prospects of growing beyond the city, in the metropolitan area of Barcelona and across Catalonia.
Class, Culture and Conflict in Barcelona, 1898-1937 by Chris Ealham
This book investigates urban conflict, popular protest and social control in Barcelona during the period 1898-1937. Focusing upon the sources of anarchist power in the city and the role of the organised anarchist movement during the Second Republic the volume concludes with an analysis of the decline of the power of the anarchist movement during the civil war in its identification of the local conditions that made Barcelona into the capital of European anarchism.
Freedom for Catalonia? Catalan Nationalism, Spanish Identity, and the Barcelona Olympic Game by John Hargreaves
Although the fight for independence by national minorities has received much attention recently, there is no study of how globalised sport in its most advanced form can help to stimulate it. This book shows how the 1992 Olympic Games raised the tension that already existed between Catalonia and Spain, from the time they were awarded to Barcelona until they opened.
A People's History of Catalonia
People who live outside the Spanish state are often astounded when they learn of the anti-Catalan vitriol poisoning Spanish social media, television and press. This book aims to explore the background to this alarming hostility, fostered today by the Spanish ruling class to oppose the Catalan struggle for independence. This anti-Catalanism is not some new reaction to troublesome secessionists, but has roots deep in history.
Red Barcelona: Social Protest and Labour Mobilization in the Twentieth Century by Angel Smith (Editor)
As one of Europe's great industrial and revolutionary centres Barcelona has been in need of a detailed social and cultural history, yet there is actually a paucity of detailed research. This book redresses the balance. Focusing on the entire twentieth century, it allows for the emergence of long-term trends, and deals with both classic and newer themes of labour history. This novel and authoritative work will interest not only those working on Spain, but all scholars and students of comparative history.

Barcelona by Robert Hughes
A monumentally informed and irresistibly opinionated guide to the most un-Spanish city in Spain. In these pages, Robert Hughes scrolls through Barcelona's often violent history; tells the stories of its kings, poets, magnates, and revolutionaries; and ushers readers through municipal landmarks that range from Antoni Gaudi's sublimely surreal cathedral to a postmodern restaurant with a glass-walled urinal. The result is a work filled with the attributes of Barcelona itself: proportion, humor, and seny--the Catalan word for triumphant common sense.
Bibliophiles, Murderous Bookmen, and Mad Librarians: The Story of Books in Modern Spain
Bibliophiles, Murderous Bookmen, and Mad Librarians delves into the practice of bibliophilia - the love of books - and the many ways in which books are represented in modern Spanish literature
Bilingual Legacies: Father Figures in Self-writing from Barcelona, 1975-2005
Bilingual Legacies is a book about fatherhood in the work of four canonical Spanish authors born in Barcelona and raised during Franco's dictatorship.
Homage to Cataloni by George. Orwell
Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War.
Literary Labyrinths in Franco-Era Barcelona: Narrating Memory and Place by Colleen P. Culleton
Bringing together works by Salvador Espriu, Juan Goytisolo, Mercè Rodoreda, Esther Tusquets, and Juan Marsa that portray memory as a disorienting narrative enterprise, Colleen Culleton argues that the source of this disorientation is the material reality of life in Barcelona in the immediate post-Civil War years. Barcelona was the object of harsh persecution in the first years of the Franco regime that included the erasure of marks of Catalan identity and cultural history from the urban landscape and made Barcelona a moving target for memory.

The Aesthetics of the Ephemeral: Memory Theaters in Contemporary Barcelona by Jennifer Duprey
In The Aesthetics of the Ephemeral, Jennifer Duprey examines five contemporary plays from Barcelona: Olors and Testament by Josep Maria Benet i Jornet, Antígona by Jordi Coca, Forasters by Sergi Belbel, and Temptació by Carles Batlle. She argues that in both the theatrical text and its performance an aesthetics of the ephemeral materializes that is related to specific manifestations of cultural and historical memory in Spain and Catalonia.
Antoni Gaudí, 1852-1926: Architecture, Ideology, and Politics by Juan Jose Lahuerta
Antoni Gaudí (1852-1928) was a builder by instinct and by practice, fanciful and baroque in his sensibility, in love with the bright colours and plastic forms of the Mediterranean tradition. Despite his considerable contributions, Gaudí was an isolated figure in the architecture of the modern era. Critics were slow to recognize the prophetic value of his work, owing to the difficulty in reconciling it with the development of the Modern Movement.
Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí by William H. Robinson; Jordi Falgas; Carmen Bellon Lord; Robert Hughes (Foreword by)
A major new study of the artists and events surrounding the epochal Catalonian modern art movement. During the years after the September Revolution of 1868, Barcelona experienced tremendous industrial growth and emerged as the most politically and culturally progressive city in Spain.
Designer, Leaves England, Goes to Barcelona by Neil Cutler
Few designers have left their mark on the city of Barcelona quite like Neil Cutler. He's the designer behind the graphic concepts of dozens of restaurants in this European cultural hot spot, many of which are known to visitors and locals alike. Cutler is also a renowned packaging designer. Attracted by a climate somewhat better than that of his native Northern England, he's has been living and working as a graphic designer in Barcelona since 1987.

More about:

Gaudi, Antoni, -- 1852-1926.

Dalí, Salvador, -- 1904-1989.

Miró, Joan, -- 1893-1983.

Picasso, Pablo, -- 1881-1973.

Architectural Digest Archive This link opens in a new window
A searchable archive of Architectural Digest, from the first issue in 1922 to 2011. Pages, advertisements, and covers are included.
The interface for this and all our other EBSCO databases will change mid-2025. Click here to try out the new interface early!
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.
Bloomsbury Architecture Library This link opens in a new window
Ebooks and images on architecture, urbanism, and interior design.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.
Arts & Humanities Database This link opens in a new window
Coverage in Art, Architecture, Design, History, Philosophy, Music, Literature, Theatre and Cultural Studies.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Images from all areas of art.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.
Bloomsbury Design Library This link opens in a new window
Ebooks providing comprehensive global coverage of the history, theory and practice of crafts and design, from prehistoric times to the present day.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.
Continental Europe Database This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary academic journals that are locally published in many European countries, including France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.
eHRAF World Cultures This link opens in a new window
Contains information on present and past aspects of cultural and social life for a worldwide sample of societies. Includes full text of ebooks, articles, and other documents.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.
Latin America & Iberia Database This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary academic journals published in Latin American countries, Spain, and Portugal.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Authoritative encyclopedia articles on all aspects of art. Please disregard the prompt to sign in. Just enter terms in the search bar to continue searching.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.

Antonio Gaudí, of Spain : Barcelona's Great Architect Truly universal works in view of the diverse cultural sources from which they are inspired, the creations of Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926) in Barcelona represent an eclectic as well as a very personal architectural style which led to new styles, not only as regards architecture but also for gardens, sculpture and all forms of decorative art.
Barcelona, Spain Full of history, Barcelona has reinvented itself time and again to become one of the world’s most influential cities. Today, the smart city of Barcelona is not the smart city it was five years ago – and architect Jason Pomeroy is there to find out what a smart city 2.0 looks like…
Barcelona City Guide This Globe Trekker episode follows Megan McCormick through Barcelona in the Spanish region of Cataluña.
The Casa Mila - Antonio Gaudi The Casa Milà, in Barcelona, commonly known as "La Pédrera", is a block of flats built between 1906 and 1909 by Antonio Gaudi to display the greater power and glory of the Milàs. This film explores the inside and outside of one of Gaudi's most unusual works.
Gaudi : Spirit of Barcelona Antoni Gaudi was the enfant terrible of Catalan architecture-a genius whose Gothic inspiration and daring taste transformed Barcelona from a city evolving layer by layer and style by style from an ancient past into a dramatic statement of timeless individuality.
The German Pavilion in Barcelona Here, between grandeur and gratuity, Mies van der Rohe states his vision of the new architecture. The German pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona World Fair holds the record for notoriety per square meter built.
The Igualada Cemetery A memorial spanning 20th century architecture and inspired by Le Corbusier and Richard Long, the Igualada Cemetery merges into the countryside near Barcelona. Designed by Catalan architects Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos at the start of their careers, it features oblique concrete facades, river-like pathways, and an underground chapel.
Barcelona Through the Catalan capital’s art and artists, they show how Barcelona developed its distinctive cultural identity, and how the long-running fight for independence has shaped the exceptional artistic life of the city.
Barcelona Armchair : Design-Milestones of 20th Century Industrial Design Two large padded-leather cushions rest on an elegant frame in the shape of an "X". The Barcelona Chair, which was designed in 1929 by architect Mies Van Der Rohe for the Barcelona International Exhibition to furnish the pavilion representing Germany, is immediately identifiable as a classic design.
Country Inns : Homes By Design In the village of Vallvidrera, Barcelona sits this elegant neo-classical mansion built by a Cuban woman in 1900.

Museums, Websites & Background Information

Arc de Triomf
Arc de Triomf, former entrance of the World Exposition 1888 in Barcelona
CaixaForum – Herzog + de Meuron
Casa Amatller
Discover the house of Catalan modernism here and gain access to one of the most prestigious History of Art Institutes in Europe.
Casa Batlló
Casa Gomis – Antonio Bonet Castellana
La Ricarda or Casa Gomis, completed in 1963, is one of the key midcentury buildings in Spain.
Casa Museu Gaudí
The Gaudí House Museum shows the more personal side of the architect, as well as furniture and other items he designed or that were executed under his guidance.
CCCB – Centre du Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona
Cripta de la Colònia Güell
Dipòsit de les Aigües
The Water Tower building was designed in 1874 by master of works Josep Fontserè, who took charge of the whole of the old military garrison area.
Disseny Hub - MBM
The Disseny Hub Barcelona building contains the Design Museum of Barcelona with the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts, the Museum of Ceramics, the Museum of Textiles and Clothing and the department of Graphic Arts.
El Peix d’Or
Frank Gehry’s Golden Fish Sculpture
Fundació Joan Miró
A museum of modern art honoring Joan Miró
Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau
Founded around 600 years ago, the "Hospital Sant Pau" developed from a medieval welfare house into a modern hospital complex.
Jardí Botànic de Barcelona (Botanical Garden of Barcelona)
The purpose of the Jardí Botànic is to conserve and disseminate collections of Mediterranean plants from around the world.
La Fábrica – Ricardo Bofill
Located in the outskirts of Barcelona, the repurposed cement factory La Fábrica is home to the Taller de Arquitectura (RBTA) and the Bofill family.
La Pedrera - Casa Mila
Las Arenas – Richard Rogers
The Las Arenas bullring formally re-opened to the public on 25 March 2011 as a major new mixed-use leisure, entertainment, and office complex.
MACBA – Museu d/’Art Contemporani de Barcelona- Richard Meier + Partners
Mercat dels Encants
301 shops and 9 restaurants, experience a unique space, full of opportunities, at Encants Market
Mercats de Santa Caterina
Built in 1848 the refurbishment of Barcelona's first covered food market by the architectural practice of Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue was completed in 2005.
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC)
Museum of Catalan visual art
Museu Picasso
Palau de la Música
The Palau de la Música Catalana was built between 1905 and 1908 by the modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner as a home for the Orfeó Català, financed by popular subscription. The building is located in Sant Pere district, one of the most beautiful areas of Barcelona.
Palau Güell
The Building is an early work of the architect Gaudí.
Parc de la Ciutadella
Park Güell
The park is one of the largest green spaces in Barcelona, with more than 17 hectares, next to the Sierra de Collserola.
Pavello Mies Van der Rohe
The building methods that were realized in the German Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe for the 1929 World's Fair have been groundbreaking for architecture throughout the world.
Poble Espanyol
Poble Espanyol is architecture, art, tradition, handicrafts, open air, as well as being a unique space for family-friendly activities, concerts and exhibitions in Barcelona.
Sagrada Família
Teixidors
Teixidors was founded in 1983 in Terrassa, a city long associated with Spain’s textile industry. The company captures that century-old local textile expertise and interprets it through a socially engaged, environmentally friendly approach to the craft.
Walden 7 – Ricardo Bofill

Barcelona
Barcelona is a city with a wide range of original leisure options that encourage you to visit time and time again. Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, and famous for Gaudí and other Art Nouveau architecture, Barcelona is one of Europe’s trendiest cities.
Barcelona Architecture Walks
Barcelona Architecture Walks are a series of urban walking tours led by architects, inviting you to discover our city through the buildings and lessons of its Masters.
Barcelona Tourism
Barcelona Tourist Guide

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Credo is an easy-to-use tool for starting research. Gather background information on your topic from hundreds of full-text general and subject-specific reference titles, as well as 500,000+ images and audio files and over 1,000 videos.
Off campus access restricted to current KPU students and employees.

Contemporary Spain by Christopher Ross; Bill Richardson; Begoña Sangrador-Vegas
Contemporary Spain provides an accessible introduction to the politics, economy, institutions media and cinema of contemporary Spain. This fully revised fourth edition includes new material that makes this the most comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date account of the situation in Spain at this juncture. Contemporary Spain is an invaluable resource for all undergraduate students on Hispanic Studies courses. The authoritative background information provides a solid foundation and a springboard for further study.
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Culture by Professor Eamonn Rodgers (Editor); Eamonn Rodgers (Editor)
Some 750 alphabetically-arranged entries provide insights into recent cultural and political developments within Spain, including the cultures of Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque country. Coverage spans from the end of the Civil War in 1939 to the present day, with emphasis on the changes following the demise of the Franco dictatorship in 1975
The Spanish Empire [2 Volumes] by H. Micheal Tarver (Editor); Emily Slape (Editor)
Through reference entries and primary documents, this book surveys a wide range of topics related to the history of the Spanish Empire, including past events and individuals as well as the Iberian kingdom's imperial legacy. The book provides students as well as anyone interested in Spain, Latin America, or empires in general the necessary materials to explore and better understand the centuries-long empire of the Iberian kingdom

KPU Library

Design (DESN, FIND)

Welcome to the Design in Barcelona Field School 2024 Library Guide

Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina Barcelona by Felix König licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

(Barcelona) Palau Nacional - National Museum of Art of Catalunya by Didier Descouens licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

Exterior of the Església de Sant Francesc de Sales (Barcelona) by Didier Descouens licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

Barcelona districtes; public domain

Barcelona Raval by Jorge Franganillo licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Find Books

Journal Articles & Films

Museums, Websites & Background Information