The numerous signboards promoting various products and services, as well as pop-up street trading, have become the focal points of this governmental project in Barcelona. Apart from the esthetic damage to the building facades these advertisements cause, such signboards may become overwhelming, escalating into a source of stress for pedestrians. The first stage of the project covered the popular street known as the Rambla. Accordingly, advertising signs were removed from the most visited street of the city and from its souvenir shops.
As Gala Pin, the district head, claims, initially this project was created to “clean up” the Rambla. In the past two years, 113 violations of the ban on such visual images have been eliminated from the street, but the project objectives do not end here. The government and the Municipal Institute of Urban Landscape are working to spread this initiative over the areas adjacent to Guell Palace, the Palace of Catalonian Music, and the church of Santa Maria del Mar. The city authorities maintain that the city of Barcelona “should not look like Las Vegas” and should not urge the residents of the city to “escape” to the neighboring outskirts, where they “will not be avalanched by excessive advertising.”