Not so long ago, travelers might have stopped in the Glòries area of Barcelona only if they were stuck in traffic. Three major roads leading in and out of this Spanish city — Avenida Diagonal, Avenida Meridiana and the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes — converged here at an elevated roundabout, where cars often came to a standstill.

But lately this northeastern axis of the Catalan capital — situated in the Sant Martí district, bordering Eixample — is becoming a place to go to, not just through, especially for those interested in design. The roundabout has been torn down as part of a roadway reconfiguration, making the area more walkable. And some of the city’s most exciting public spaces have sprung up nearby, including a popular flea market under a modernist metal roof and, opening last December, the Barcelona Design Museum. “The area is definitely up-and-coming,” said the tour guide Jordan Susselman, whose company, Hi. This Is Barcelona … , increasingly makes stops in Glòries and adjacent Poblenou.

In fact, the city has been trying to invigorate this part of town for some time. Ildefons Cerdà, the engineer who drew up the 1859 plan for the expansion of Barcelona, envisioned his Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes as a new town center. Instead, Glòries (pronounced GLO-rias), as it’s commonly called, became the aforementioned traffic snarl, a no man’s land at the top point of a triangular swath stretching down to the Mediterranean, encompassing Poblenou, or “new city,” a longtime manufacturing zone that declined in the 20th century.

Redevelopment efforts before the 1992 Olympics led to a rebranding of Poblenou as the “22@” district, Barcelona’s mini-Silicon Valley. In recent years, artists, architects and designers have joined technology companies here, and galleries and furniture showrooms have opened amid auto repair shops, abandoned lots and nondescript low-rise housing blocks.