This chapter explores the case of the Barcelona 22@ Innovation District, the so-called first publicly-lead innovation district project in the world, established in 2000. Built upon the post-industrial, working-class neighbourhood of Poblenou, the 22@ District has been framed in the narratives of the advent of the digital economy and urbanism. In this regard, 22@ District has been simultaneously the material laboratory, expression and realisation of Barcelona’s post-olympic city model project and its experimental evolution. First, as a strategic public–private-partnership striving for the knowledge-based economy city (2000–2011); second, as a laissez-faire market-driven smart and self-sufficient city (2011–2015); and after as city commoning through radical-democratic ‘new municipalist’ approach (2015–2023). Looking at more than two decades of urban experimentation, this chapter will argue that besides the local efforts to control and produce a thriving digital economy ecosystem, economic global dynamics have fused with supply-side urban entrepreneurial placemaking processes to create a generic urban space for business that has entered into crisis, it is heavily contested and exposes the flaws of techno-deterministic promises of the digital economy.