I currently live in the St. Martí de Provençals district of Barcelona. It's composed of two main areas: northern St. Martí (Clot, Camp de l'Arpa, Sagrera, Guinardó), which is where I live in, and southern St. Martí (Poblenou, Vila Olímpica, Diagonal Mar).
I'll begin with Poblenou (pawb-blah-NO) since the most representative streets in my neighbourhood are pedestrian-only. Which means there's no Street View photos. Plus Poblenou is a really strange neighbourhood, really unusual for Barcelona but at the same time it contains all things typical of the city (to the eyes of a local, anyway: old red brick factories, parts built following the Eixample grid, parts rebuilt during the Maragall era, the sea, the traditional shops, etc.), so I hope you find it as awesome as I do. I should move there someday...
Parc Central del Poblenou: a funky park by Jean Nouvel. Note the red brick smokestacks: back in the day Poblenou was THE industrial neighbourhood (and Barcelona has been pretty much THE industrial city until the 70s.) There are smokestacks like those all over the city, but somehow people from Poblenou are especially proud about them. There's even a guy who sells miniature models...
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2372/77082764.jpghttp://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7306/24952639.jpghttp://img30.imageshack.us/img30/5122/59171888.jpghttp://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4575/42868804.jpghttp://img33.imageshack.us/img33/347/50246811.jpgPere IV Street: one of Poblenou's main streets.
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9752/93944338.jpgCan Felipa: another old factory (even though it looks like traditional housing in a northern French city, complete with mansard roofs)
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/1631/41913013.jpgMarià Aguiló Street: clearly the coolest street in the neighbourhood. This is where I should live. This or the Old City, where my dad was born.
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/6999/34494091.jpghttp://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4627/94511296.jpgPoblenou Market (background)
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/8532/18153525.jpgAtlètic Poblenou, the neighbourhood's soccer team. There's also a rugby team, els Enginyers de Poblenou, the "Poblenou Engineers". With names like this I'm surprised they haven't replaced the Martinenc flag with a smokestack over the Catalan flag or something like that...
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/7624/31627727.jpgRambla Poblenou. Poblenou's actual main street.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/9307/99799513.jpghttp://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7708/82148305.jpgI suddenly jumped to the opposite corner of the neighbourhood for some reason.
Icària Avenue: main street of what was the Olympic Village for the 1992 Olympics.
Those funky brise-soleil things were designed by Enric Miralles. His work is part of what inspired me to become an architect - my dad was born in a very poor and run down part of the Old City, next to an old market which was eventually "restored" (more like totally made over) following a project by Miralles (
Mercat de Santa Caterina.) This and some small-scale interventions revived the zone to an unbelievable degree, which really touched me (and my dad). That's what made me realise the potential of architecture.
http://img36.imageshack.us/my.php?image=56073754.jpg"Bridge buildings" are an important part of the Olympic Village. They are buldings that create an entry to the inner courtyard of the blocks. The planners did this so they could build disperse, Modernist-style housing inside the blocks while retaining the urbanity and hierarchy of the traditional, commercial, Eixample grid street.
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/3661/62737370.jpghttp://img33.imageshack.us/img33/9269/24318456.jpgI think that smokestack over 50 metres high? The high-rises are around 150m for comparison.
http://img42.imageshack.us/my.php?image=28851971.jpgThere's this weird pseudo-park between the city and the seafront. It actually covers a motorway.
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/3438/98204322.jpghttp://img39.imageshack.us/img39/3535/37285431.jpghttp://img36.imageshack.us/img36/4331/24943292.jpgIt leads to Diagonal Mar, which is a pretty boring zone. However its core is a park by Enric Miralles so it can't be all that bad, right? I'm also fond of the building that looks as if it had been nuked. Pretty clever to turn the metallic blinds into the face of the building.
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4746/44583748.jpghttp://img36.imageshack.us/img36/5941/44323684.jpgAfter which is the Fòrum area, which is like a pseudo-park minus the trees, next to the sea, with some high-rises around. Actually it's sort of like a Sonic level. There's a
really awesome tower by Enric Massip-Bosch going up right now - just 3 floors for now. He teaches at my school, although I haven't heard anything good about him XD
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/1677/40038739.jpgSt. Adrià's three smokestacks mark the frontier between Barcelona proper and the Besòs side of the metro area.
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/9428/29686976.jpgEverybody loves tramways!
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/9518/26417762.jpg...and dildos.
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/5609/35679685.jpgThe Poblenou graveyard and some old factories. The photo doesn't show, but it's massive. I guess industrial workers didn't live long back in the 1880s.
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/8262/93540627.jpg