During the eighteenth century, the urban landscape of Barcelona evolved under the political needs and planning ideas of the military engineers of the Spanish state, from a declining port city to one dominated by manufacturing. The construction of the Ciutadella fortress reshaped the medieval landscape, reinforced by further revisions with the planning of Barceloneta and of the Rambles. The precocious industrialisation of the city’s economy altered how Barcelona was read by growing numbers of foreign visitors, who recorded the development of the ‘Manchester of Spain’ in their publications. By the nineteenth century, this emerging industrial landscape was read more critically in the light of the Romantic interpretation of Spain, with the exception of the city’s Gothic architecture.