Plaça Joan Cornudella

If you’re looking for the Barcelona of the postcards—the one with the overpriced paella and the guys selling glowing plastic helicopters on the sidewalk—keep walking. Or better yet, stay on the bus. Plaça Joan Cornudella isn’t for you. This is Horta-Guinardó, a part of the city that doesn’t give a damn about your itinerary. It’s a place where the air gets a little thinner, the streets get a lot steeper, and the tourists are as rare as a quiet night on La Rambla.

Located in the shadow of the Collserola hills, this square is a 2,000-square-meter interior block that serves as the connective tissue for the Vall d'Hebron neighborhood. It recently underwent a brutalist-meets-modernist facelift in late 2025, turning what was once a neglected patch of willow trees and cracked concrete into a functional, no-nonsense community living room. They didn’t put in a fountain or a statue of a saint; they put in a rocódromo—a climbing wall—and calisthenics equipment. Because in this part of town, people would rather move than pose.

Walking into the square, you’re hit with the reality of Barcelona’s residential heart. It’s surrounded by high-rise apartment blocks, the kind of architecture that was built for utility, not for Instagram. But there’s a beauty in that utility. The new design by Landem focused on sustainable drainage and better connectivity, creating paths that actually go where people need to walk. You’ll see students from the nearby Mundet campus catching a breath, old men hunched over the new chess table with the intensity of grandmasters, and kids testing their grip on the concrete climbing wall. It’s the sound of a ball hitting a fence, the hiss of the wind coming off the mountain, and the low hum of a neighborhood that functions without a tourism board’s approval.

The square is named after Joan Cornudella i Barberà, a man who knew a thing or two about the uphill climb. A nationalist politician and a founder of the Front Nacional de Catalunya, he spent his life fighting for a version of Catalonia that wasn’t always popular or easy. Naming this rugged, functional space after him feels right. It’s not a place for soft edges. It’s a place for people who are used to the incline.

Is it worth the trip? That depends on what you’re hungry for. If you want to see the 'best things to do in Horta-Guinardó' according to a glossy magazine, you’ll probably end up at the Labyrinth of Horta nearby. And you should—it’s beautiful. But if you want to understand how this city actually breathes once the sun goes down and the day-trippers head back to their hotels, you come here. You sit on one of the new benches, you watch the light change on the concrete, and you realize that this—the laundry hanging from balconies, the smell of pine needles, the quiet grit of a Tuesday afternoon—is the real Barcelona. It’s honest, it’s unvarnished, and it doesn’t owe you a thing.

There are no 'hidden gems' here, just a neighborhood doing its best. The renovation added eight new trees and a bunch of shrubs, a small concession to the green lungs of the city just a few blocks away. It’s a reminder that even in the most concrete corners of the city, the mountain is always watching. Come here to escape the noise, to use the outdoor gym, or just to remind yourself that Barcelona is a city of people, not just a city of monuments. It’s a long way from the center, but that’s exactly the point.