Introduction

Ildefons Cerdà designed the Eixample blocks with open green interiors. Over a century of building pressure filled most of them with workshops, garages and extensions. Barcelona has spent the last two decades reopening some of them, and a handful of new developments are doing the same on their own plots.

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What was the original plan?

Cerdà's 1859 plan built on only part of each block, leaving the centre as garden. Light and air were the point: he was a civil engineer who had studied mortality in the cramped old city and designed the grid as a public health instrument. The economics of the following decades had other ideas.

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Why is a courtyard worth so much here?

Quiet, mostly. The Eixample is a dense grid with traffic on every side, and the interior of a block is the only place in it that is genuinely silent. Add shade, planting and a few degrees less heat in August, and a courtyard becomes the most used part of a building for half the year.

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How does Còrsega use its courtyard?

As a planted garden with seating and sculpture rather than a light well. It is a shared space for the nineteen homes, which is a different proposition from a public park: small enough to feel private, large enough to actually sit in. The homes that look onto it trade the street view for the silence.

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A private interior garden, a wellness floor and nineteen homes on Carrer de Còrsega. Request the dossier, or book a private visit.

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FAQ

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Does Còrsega Residences have a private courtyard?

Yes, a planted interior courtyard for residents, in the centre of the block.

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Are Eixample courtyards open to the public?

Some are. The city has recovered a number of block interiors as public gardens. Most remain private to their buildings.

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Is a courtyard-facing apartment worth less than a street-facing one?

Not necessarily. Street-facing homes get the light and the façade views; courtyard-facing homes get the quiet. Buyers tend to have a clear preference once they have stood in both.

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