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At the beginning of the 19th century, Barcelona was a heavily built-up, industrial city, enclosed within its own walls. The need to grow closer to nature led to the construction of broad, tree-lined avenues, which included the Passeig de Gràcia. Occupying a stretch of road known as the Camí de Jesús, between the Portal del Àngel and the expanding village of Gràcia, this avenue played a decisive role in developing Ildefons Cerdà’s Eixample project. At the beginning of the 20th century, the boulevard became Barcelona’s new main street and the backdrop to a city that was beginning the new century with fresh impetus from the upper middle classes, the rise of modernisme and the arrival of the motorcar. Nowadays, it forms the backbone of the Eixample district. It is an avenue that combines private homes, prestigious shops, cafés, restaurants and many of the architectural jewels of the modernista era, such as Domènech i Montaner’s Casa Lleó Morera, Puig i Cadafalch’s Casa Amatller and Gaudí’s Casa Batlló and Casa Mila (La Pedrera). Also worth highlighting are the streetlamp-benches designed in 1906 by Pere Flaqués. The benches, the white broken-tile mosaics and wrought-iron streetlamps with their plant motifs are reminiscent of Gaudí’s forms and comprise a characteristic modernista ensemble. Another significant element are the Panots de la Varsovia: identical, hexagonal paving stones copied from the tiles designed by Gaudí for the floor of the Casa Batlló which were eventually laid in the kitchens of the apartments in La Pedrera. In 2002 the municipal council paved the Passeig de Gràcia with these Panots, which reveal marine motifs when viewed as a set of six units: an octopus, a sea snail and a starfish.