Plaça de Sant Jaume has been the seat of power in Barcelona for roughly two thousand years. The Romans built their forum here, at the exact crossing of the cardo and decumanus, the two roads every Roman city required. Their Temple of Augustus once dominated this spot; four of its columns survive on nearby Carrer Paradís, tucked inside a medieval courtyard.

The square took its present, open form only in 1823, when a medieval church and its cemetery were cleared away. Before that, it was cramped and irregular, a poor stage for the two institutions that now face each other across it: the 15th-century Palau de la Generalitat and the City Hall, whose Saló de Cent has been holding council since 1373.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tour uses the square to trace how the Roman village of Barcino became the Gothic Quarter, connecting its ancient street grid to Barcelona's surviving medieval fabric and explaining why this particular patch of ground has never stopped being the place where the city governs itself.