Barcelona

Barcelona is a city in Spain, and is the primary setting of the Rec franchise. It appears in Rec 1,2,3, and the opening of Rec 4.

Names
The name Barcelona comes from the ancient Iberian Baŕkeno, attested in an ancient coin inscription found on the right side of the coin in Iberian script as ,[14] in ancient Greek sources as Βαρκινών, Barkinṓn;[15][16] and in Latin as Barcino,[17] Barcilonum[18] and Barcenona.[19][20][21]

Some older sources suggest that the city may have been named after the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who was supposed to have founded the city in the 3rd century BC,[22] but there is no evidence that Barcelona was ever a Carthaginian settlement, or that its name in antiquity, Barcino, had any connection with the Barcid family of Hamilcar.[23] During the Middle Ages, the city was variously known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa, and Barchenona.

Internationally, Barcelona's name is wrongly abbreviated to 'Barça'. However, this name refers only to FC Barcelona, the football club. The common abbreviated form used by locals is Barna.

Another common abbreviation is 'BCN', which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport.

The city is also referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan, and Ciudad Condal in Spanish (i.e. Comital City or City of Counts), owing to its past as the seat of the Count of Barcelona.[24]

Main sights
Sagrada Família church, designed by Gaudí

The Barri Gòtic (Catalan for "Gothic Quarter") is the centre of the old city of Barcelona. Many of the buildings date from medieval times, some from as far back as the Roman settlement of Barcelona. Catalan modernista architecture (related to the movement known as Art Nouveau in the rest of Europe) developed between 1885 and 1950 and left an important legacy in Barcelona. Several of these buildings are World Heritage Sites. Especially remarkable is the work of architect Antoni Gaudí, which can be seen throughout the city. His best-known work is the immense but still unfinished church of the Sagrada Família, which has been under construction since 1882 and is still financed by private donations. As of 2015, completion is planned for 2026.[149]

Barcelona was also home to Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion. Designed in 1929 for the International Exposition for Germany, it was an iconic building that came to symbolise modern architecture as the embodiment of van der Rohe's aphorisms "less is more" and "God is in the details."[150] The Barcelona pavilion was intended as a temporary structure and was torn down in 1930 less than a year after it was constructed. A modern re-creation by Spanish architects now stands in Barcelona, however, constructed in 1986.

Barcelona won the 1999 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for its architecture,[151] the first (and as of 2015, only) time that the winner has been a city