Barcelona Forum

UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Disconnected innovations : new urbanity in large-scale development projects: Zuidas Amsterdam, Ørestad Copenhagen and Forum Barcelona Majoor, S.J.H. Publication date 2008 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Majoor, S. J. H. (2008). Disconnected innovations : new urbanity in large-scale development projects: Zuidas Amsterdam, Ørestad Copenhagen and Forum Barcelona. Uitgeverij Eburon. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:27 Sep 2021 Disconnected Innovations ‘The area could be likened to an attic. Every house has one and nobody would deny the usefulness of a place to stuff junk. Even so, none of us would dream of showing it to our dinner guests. Similar infrastructures exist in all cities. The difference in the case of Barcelona is that it is all crammed together in one area and, worse still, along a high-profile 2 km stretch of coastline.’ (Acebillo 2004, p.45) CHAPTER 5 BARCELONA FORUM 5.1 Introduction It is no surprise that the transformation of an almost ‘forgotten’ industrial area into a vibrant place of new urbanity and high quality public space is far from an easy chal- lenge. That is exactly what is at stake in Barcelona’s Forum project. This project is part of a much bigger ensemble of urban regeneration activities in a city with probably one of Europe’s most studied, discussed and famous strategies of urban interventions in the previous three decades (see for example the extensive works of Marshall 1996, 2000, 2004 and Monclús 2003 on planning; McNeill 1999, 2003 on left-wing oriented poli- tics and Busquets 2005 on urban design, to name just a few). Barcelona’s strategies of urban transformation have certainly been interpreted as a good practice by many visit- ing foreign politicians. The city’s recent urban transformation took place against a very interesting political, social and cultural backdrop after the transition to democracy at the end of the 1970s. Barcelona gained worldwide attention and recognition for the way it used the (building program of the) Olympic Games of 1992 to physically up- grade different parts of the city and create a favourable image for itself worldwide. In the last few decades, the city has developed into a magnet for international tourists. After the Olympics, the city government set out a whole series of strategic projects in the eastern sector of the city. The goal was to improve Barcelona’s position in the ad- vanced service economy which was a structural weakness of the city’s economy. Fo- rum, a project that combines the development of infrastructure, real estate and public space with a cultural event in the spring and summer of 2004, was used to create addi- tional momentum for this new phase of urban transformation. A very challenging loca- tion was chosen, namely a still-used industrialized section of the Mediterranean coast, alongside run-down neighbourhoods. In this respect, Forum is probably the most visual, symbolic and prominent marker of the newest phase of the city’s development. For us, Forum is the case through which we try to understand Barcelona’s current transformation. We study whether the conditions are being created for the development of new urbanity, as this is what its protago- nists are aiming to achieve. After the highly-praised urban developments of the Olym- 159 Chapter 5: Barcelona Forum pic period we can investigate whether Barcelona is again setting international standards for urban transformation or whether its capacity faltered in a new context at the begin- ning of the 21st century. Interestingly enough, the Forum project was initiated during a period in which doubts about and criticisms of Barcelona’s almost continuous transformation were being voiced more clearly than ever before. From an institutional perspective we investigate how the Forum project is connected to the different societal domains of the metropolitan action space. We investigate the gov- ernance innovations that have taken place and analyse the project’s initial results. We ask to what extent the ambition to create a place of new urbanity has evolved in a vali- dated social norm. Our information is based on in-depth fieldwork on this project in the spring of 2005, via a documentary analysis and a set of fourteen interviews with repre- sentatives of different stakeholders, and people that have been reflecting on urban developments in Barcelona.1 The chapter is structured as follows. Before describing the initiation of the Forum project in section 5.3, we briefly outline the context of Barcelona’s urban development in the last decades in section 5.2. The unique way in which development in Barcelona took place in recent decades is important for a proper understanding of the Forum project. An analysis of the strategic and operational aspects of the project is provided in sections 5.4 and 5.5, after which we examine to what extent social norms on new urbanity have been realized in section 5.6. Section 5.7 contains our general conclusions. 5.2 Urban development in Barcelona Urban development in Barcelona in the last few decades has been extensively covered, assessed and critically debated. In June 1999, Barcelona received the Royal Gold Medal from Her Majesty the Queen of England based on a recommendation by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). For the first time the award was bestowed on an entire city rather than an architect. The literature refers to a ‘Barcelona model’ of urban development, which is a successful co-ordination of economic, political and 1 Research for the empirical part of this chapter took place primarily during May and June 2005, having been prepared during a short quick scan in August 2004 that included a visit to the Universal Forum of Cultures event. During that two month period in 2005, planning and policy documents related to the Forum project were reviewed and 14 interviews were conducted. The full list of interviews, including the institutional affiliation of the respondents can be found in the appendix at the end of the book. All the interviews were conducted face-to-face in the Barcelona area. Most were in English, in some cases Catalan was the language. In this case an interpreter was used. Each interview was between 45 and 90 minutes long and was semi-structured, taped and subsequently transcribed. Although written questions were prepared for each interview, the sessions were conducted in a somewhat informal way as the issues presented themselves rather than by following a rigid script. For the selection of the interviewees a combination was sought of (1) practitioners currently involved in the transformation of the Forum project, from both a public and a private side and (2) academics and civic activists who could help understand the bigger picture and sharpen the critical analysis. During our written analysis we use the information from these interviews. They are refer- ences to a concern, issue, thought or question that came up in that particular interview. The idea is for this to underpin, strengthen or illustrate our own line of reasoning. In each case we include the name of the interviewee in brackets. Previously we published about our Barcelona fieldwork in: Majoor 2006b and Majoor 2008. 160 Disconnected Innovations civic interests, as being an underlying factor for its success (Marshall 2000, 2004; Gar- cia-Ramon and Albet 2000; Newman and Thornley 2005). However, at the same time, other scholars and urban activists have highlighted the negative impacts of Barcelona’s development, especially for disadvantaged groups (Balibrea 2004; Borja 2004). In this section we analyse Barcelona’s urban development in the last few decades by identifying several, partly overlapping, timeframes. We begin by outlining urban development in the last period of the Franco regime and the period of early democracy (till 1979). Then we analyse the interesting period in the Eighties when, boosted by Barcelona’s successful bid for the 1992 Olympics, a lot of transformation projects were initiated. In the post-Olympic era Barcelona was confronted by new spatial, economic and social challenges. The Forum 2004 project, which was initiated at the end of the Nineties, has to be understood against this backdrop. From section 5.3 on our focus is specifically on the project itself. 5.2.1 Franco period and period of early democracy (till 1979) Barcelona has a long industrial past. In 1832, Spain’s first steam powered industry was established in Barcelona and in 1848 its first railway line was built (Nello 2004). Fa- vourable climate and energy conditions – cheap hydroelectric from the Pyrenees – helped make Barcelona one of Europe’s main centres for the textile industry during the 19th century. Although there were numerous social conflicts in the city known for its left-wing anarchistic political leanings (Vázquez Montalbán 1992; McNeill 1999), its expansion at the end of the 19th century was spatially quite orderly, following Ildefons Cerdà’s famous 1853 plan for the Eixample (‘extension’).

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