City Streets

The weekend before last I traveled with some of my fellow students to Barcelona. The city’s unique and intriguing architecture was the highlight of the trip, but the contrast between the cities of Barcelona and Rome was also very interesting. The scale, layout, and use of the city streets compared to those typical of the historic center of Rome and Trastevere were very different.

Rome’s streets are like slot canyons, narrow and vertical. Their random, disordered layout is derived from the ancient foundations that still lie beneath the city today, although there are some exceptions where religious and political leaders have intervened to create long, straight streets to connect important buildings and monuments as well as to assist in navigating throughout the city. Often, Roman streets are shared between cars, scooters, bicycles and pedestrians where all modes of transportation share the entire cross section of the street.

Barcelona was the complete opposite. Barcelona’s buildings were around the same height, but its streets are much wider. It’s plan was developed in more modern times, unlike Rome, and many of its streets follow a regular plan composed of square blocks with the corners cut off. The way the streets are used is completely different as well; most are divided into several distinct zones, including wide sidewalks for pedestrians, multiple lanes of traffic and parking, and sometimes a center lane for pedestrian and bike traffic, with multiple rows of tall trees defining each zone. These differences give each city its own distinct character: Barcelona feels airy, spacious and formal, while Rome is more enclosed, energetic, and surprising.