Where the streets have no name

It is said that Bono, the lead singer of the Irish band U2, once heard a comment in his hometown, Dublin, explaining that just by knowing the name of the street where you lived, people could deduce whether you were Catholic or Protestant, rich or poor, and even the political party you voted for. The title of his next song would suggest a place where the streets have no name, to erase the labels that lead us to prejudge and classify people based on their origins.

This phenomenon happens in many other cultures and cities, but in Ireland, the social conflict undoubtedly polarized people’s stances and commitments to their beliefs for a long time, making this issue even more visible.

Toponymy, or the naming of places, follows various motivations: some are geographical, others historical, and sometimes even forward-looking. The truth is that we endow places with meaning associated with their names, and sometimes the name grants them a certain prominence: the Arc de Triomf, the City of Justice…

If we look at the 1859 Eixample project in Barcelona, by Ildefons Cerdà, we see that the streets had no names. Only the pre-existing areas, such as Barceloneta, Poblenou, or Sants, as well as geographical features, were named. But the new streets were left unnamed.

This task was assigned by Barcelona City Council to Víctor Balaguer i Cirera in 1863, four years after the approval of the Eixample. Balaguer was a renowned writer and poet who later became a minister. His political and historical profile was key to being chosen for the job. In naming the streets and squares, Balaguer praised the territories of the Crown of Aragon, Catalan institutions and figures, and some historical feats.

One of these was a tribute to a prolonged resistance during armed conflicts and bombings in the city of Barcelona: the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes.

A few years before the Eixample project, General Espartero had famously said that Barcelona needed to be “bombarded every 50 years for Spain’s own good,” and the Montjuïc Castle and the Ciutadella were places that, far from defending the city, were used to bombard it.

Plaça de les Glòries transitioned from symbolizing the pacification of historical armed conflicts to becoming a stage for permanent urban conflict.

The location chosen by Balaguer, different from what we know today, could not have been more symbolic: the end of Passeig de Sant Joan, in front of the military Ciutadella, surrounded by bastions and separated from the walls of the old city. A square was envisioned there as a tribute to all the Civic and Military Glories of Catalonia. However, it was never built. After the 1868 revolution, the Ciutadella was demolished and handed over to the City Council, which turned it into a park, rendering the projected square meaningless.

It wasn’t until the early 20th century that the name Plaça de les Glòries was assigned to the place we know today, detached from the historical weight that this toponym initially carried. It was a complicated spot where the city’s three widest and longest streets—Meridiana, Gran Via, and Diagonal—converged, alongside the railway lines of Granollers and Sants. A true chaos, always unfinished, always unresolved.

Over time, Glòries has witnessed highways, parks, metro and train lines, lakes, flea markets, and even a pedestrian bridge now repurposed in the Forum esplanade. The most recent project, the elevated viaduct inaugurated for the 1992 Olympics, was demolished just 15 years later.

As if haunted by the weight of its name, in a few years, Plaça de les Glòries shifted from representing the pacification of historical armed conflicts to staging permanent urban conflict. A conflict that, on the other hand, should be seen as a sign of normalcy.

Glòries represents the quintessential open-air urban laboratory. A place of friction, movement, and exchange. The different versions of Glòries highlight the challenges of living in society, reaching agreements, and building cities. Each version also reflects the social context of its time: the invasion of cars and the transformation of urban spaces to serve them or the subsequent remedies in the form of park-and-ride facilities to deter cars from entering the city center.

And each new iteration always seems to be the definitive one—the magic formula that will resolve all contemporary issues and last forever…

The current Plaça de les Glòries, still under construction, is envisioned as a response to the climate challenges we face. With a new approach of removing asphalt from city streets, allowing water to seep into the ground and reducing heat emissions, the new square aims to be a naturalized space. An urban park reminding us that we are part of nature and coexist with other living beings on this planet. A stage that hides a backdrop of sewers, trains, galleries, and tunnels underground to showcase aboveground acts like “The Water Cycle” or “Biodiversity.”

Erase and start again, as U2’s singer intended, to forget who Glòries truly is, what its real origins are. Until the next identity crisis, when new societal challenges stir its conscience once more. Welcome, conflict.