Be more Barcelona: 7 ways to channel the city’s radical outlook

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona's most famous landmark, is still under construction - and has been since 1882.

Despite architect Antoni Gaudí's models and workshop being destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, architects and craftsmen today use 3D printers to create models to help continue the outstanding feat begun by Barcelona’s favourite son.

Gaudi had dedicated the latter years of his life solely to the great cathedral, secluding himself in his workshop and letting his outward appearance degenerate somewhat until, in a tragic accident, he was struck by a tram and, mistaken for a beggar, failed to receive the medical treatment he needed. He died three days later.

Current completion is projected to be 2026, the 100th anniversary of the architect's death. Gaudi himself was not bothered by the cathedral's slow progress, famously saying “my client is not in a hurry”.

Brand Barcelona is booming and, in the eyes of the city's own authority, has actually become too successful.

The city is so popular with tourists that its mayor has had to impose limits on numbers at the famous La Boqueria covered marketplace, to allow access for locals.

Arguably placing residents' needs ahead of future economic growth, she has also implemented a ban on new hotel builds. Such is the concern of locals that a recent survey placed tourism ahead of poverty as the biggest problem facing the city.

“If we don’t want to end up like Venice, we will have to put some kind of limit in Barcelona,” Mayor Ada Colau has said.

A lesser-known Gaudi building in Barcelona, Torre Bellesguard, only recently opened to the public. The building has an elongated and asymmetric fairytale exterior.

If you’re lucky enough to be one of the 18 people allowed to visit the castle at one time, and you look closely enough, you’ll find the architect built part of the roof to look exactly like a dragon with two windows for nostrils.

"Gaudi fell in love with dragons," says historian Fernando Garcés Blázquez. "The dragon and St. George is one of the most popular legends in Catalonia."

More than 1,400 bomb shelters were built beneath the city during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), during which time the city was bombarded by Franco and Mussolini to wage terror on the left-leaning Republicans.

Dr Janina Ramirez visiting 'Bomb shelter 232' in Barcelona

"Neighbourhood committees were formed to raise money and construct their own air raid shelters," Nina Ramirez tells us in An Art Lovers' Guide.

Just two of these shelters are open to the public today.

The city’s occupants would file into these purpose-built air raid shelters but there was no London Blitz-style, spirit-lifting sing-a-longs or feisty debate, as in the shelters it was forbidden to discuss religion or politics - subjects that had arguably thrust the divided country into civil war in the first place.

Street art is flourishing in Barcelona.

As the capital of Catalonia, Barcelona has a long history of resistance to Spanish rule. In recent years the city's radical spirit has been expressed on the walls of urban streets, including political murals commenting on alleged police brutality and community protest art.

Now our own Alastair Sooke has joined in making his own mark on the city: collaborating briefly with famous street artist Sixe Paredes on a nature-inspired mural as well as having a go as a stone mason, brandishing a chisel and chipping away at a piece of stone destined to grace the exterior of La Sagrada Familia.

The Catalan spirit of resistance and struggle for equality was attractive to idealist thinkers of the time.

When George Orwell traveled to Barcelona in 1936 to join the fight against Franco's Fascists, he was impressed with the solidarity of the city's people and signed up with one of the militias of the POUM or Workers' Party of Marxist Unification.

During vicious battles on the streets of Barcelona, the writer was at one point holed up for three days on a rooftop when ordered to defend the POUM headquarters on Las Ramblas. Orwell got through the street fighting of May 1937 and returned to the Aragon front, where he also survived a bullet in his throat.

Orwell's Homage to Catalonia details the reality of the Civil War, including the vicious infighting among leftwing factions who he had thought were united against the Fascists. In 1996, the residents of the Ciutat Vella neighbourhood renamed one of Barcelona's squares the Plaça de George Orwell.