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The current Plaça del Àngels, which during its existence has been known as Plaza de los Ángeles, by Felipe Cortiella; by Anselmo Lorenzo; and Company, had its origins as a result of the small hermitage of Pie de la Cruz being installed on the site in the mid-16th century.
Given the massive attendance of parishioners and the lack of space to accommodate all those who attended religious services, the original hermitage was demolished and the new Convent dels Àngels was built in its place.
The new convent was founded by the community of blessed Dominicans of Caldes de Montbui who, in 1497, adopted the rule of Saint Augustine and became black-veiled nuns.
The religious community of the order of Santo Domingo, Virgen de los Ángeles moved to Barcelona to build the Virgen de los Ángeles convent, whose church was consecrated on January 13, 1566.
At first, they lived on alms and did not maintain strict seclusion. Despite the strict rules and refusal of the Council of Trent to reform the norms of female monastic life, the nuns continued to maintain contact with the outside world. Proof of this were the visits of the writer Francesc Fontanella, who frequented the convent, as evidenced in his poems and letters, which generated tensions with the religious and civil authorities.
The convent gained so much fervor in the Raval neighborhood that little by little the nuns expanded the premises, turning the convent into a school, whose entrance door was on the esplanade that later became the new Plaça dels Àngels.
The original square, in its origins, when the Pie de la Cruz hermitage was located in the mid-16th century, was much smaller, since initially only the convent of the Trinitarian Fathers was there from the 13th century onwards. Today, as a reminder of that old history, the current Peu de la Creu street remains.
Nowadays, with its modernity and the future works that will be carried out, many visitors do not think that this place in the Raval, with an underground car park and with the Macba and the FAD, had such an ancient history.
The events of the afternoon of July 25, 1835, in which those attending a bullfight held in the Plaza del Torin in Barceloneta caused the excited public to set fire to the city’s convents, meant that that year the nuns had to abandon the convent and have it become a correctional center dedicated to reintegrating people of both sexes.
In 1846 the authorities allowed the nuns to return to their old convent, converting the building into a school. In the square with a fountain in its central part, the old streets of Isabeles, Montalegre and Los Ángeles converged.
The square remained for much of the 20th century without any major changes. It was in the 1990s that the municipal authorities decided to build the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, ??the Macba, in the former Casa de la Caridad.
In 1986 Pasqual Maragall, then mayor of the city, commissioned the American architect Richard Meier to build the new museum similar to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was inaugurated on November 28, 1995. Currently, others have been added to the building, such as the documentation center and the Convent of the Angels.
Currently, the City Council is planning a new redevelopment of Plaça dels Àngels that will gain 1,105 square meters and the adjacent streets that include Plaça de Terenci Moix and the commercial axis of Joaquín Costa Street.
This redevelopment project will relocate the new Raval Nord CAP, the Misericordia Chapel and the new Macba extension absorbing the old Convent dels Àngels.
The square will undergo a sudden change, as a tree-lined area will be added, with vegetation, benches and sun loungers, including a 350 square meter terrace open to everyone and which is expected to be completed in 2027.
