This chapter iterates the circumstances that informed the late arrival of new retail typologies in Spain and unravels the close relationship between commercial development and urban planning. Barcelona in particular became a laboratory of 'commercial renewal', when ideas regardind public space, infrsatructure and the 'compact city' governed the discourse of urban renewal. In Barcelona shopping center thus became new points of centrality; destinations for leisure and shopping, and landmarks. This chapter places these urban commercial initiatives within international retail history and argues that in Barcelona the development of shopping centers contributes to the formation of a metropolitan city, while the typology was cleverly adpated to the cutlure of public space in the Mediterranean city.