The Transformation O F Barcelona
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THE TRANSFORMATION OF BARCELONA MONTJUIC AREA THE OLYMPIC VlllAGE THANKSTO THE GAMES, THE FOUR GREAT OLYMPIC AREAS ARE THE RESULT OF THE GREAT URBAN ADVENTURE BY WHICH BARCELONA, SUCCESSFULLY OVERCOMING DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CENTRE AND THE PERIPHERY, WILL BECOME A CIN OPEN TO THE SEA. he 1992 Olympic Games have nity over and above perfectly legitimate Narcís Serra and Oriol Bohigas started provided both the excuse and private interests. Action by the City a policy of strategic local interventions rthe incentive which have led Council, whose original protagonists in projects in public spaces, with the Barcelona on her adventure of the were the team made up of Narcís Serra, objective of beginning, by a process of greatest urban transformation this cen- mayor, and Oriol Bohigas, in charge of osmosis, the reclassification of the sur- tury. In the twenties, the 1929 Interna- town-planning, was based on the cur- rounding urban fabrics to allow an in- tional Exhibition started the conquest rent Outline Plan (whose principal ar- crease in the quality of the community's of the mountain of Montjuic by the tificer was Joan Antoni Solans) and life. A decade later, these interventions people of Barcelona and the subsequent started interventions using the project make it clear that, de'spite variations in reclassification of some of the surround- as a far more efficient tool than the the quality of the corresponding pro- ing areas. Under the Franco régime, plan. (In this, Barcelona, in the eighties, jects -out of more than a hundred and the mayor of Barcelona, Porcioles, al- anticipated the academic/political . de- fifty some are very good while others lowed uncontrolled growth in the dev- bate which has arisen throughout Eu- are no more than discreet-, the trans- elopment interests of the private sector, rope on the most suitable urbanistic formation of the neighbouring urban without an overall view of the city or methods for the transformation of a city). fabric has been successful and the urban any intention on the part of the City In the eighties, the problem in the Bar- quality of the whole area has improved. Council of setting town-planning guide- celona that Porcioles left us was not one This experience in the early years en- lines in the public interest. of expansion but of reconstruction. The couraged a change in scale from local It was not until the arrival of demo- urban fabric of the municipal territory interventions to others on a larger scale, cracy that, with the fírst democratic was fully occupied, but badly occupied to operations that would allow the City Council presided by the socialists, and with obvious shortcomings of many transformation of a run-down district action has started on the city, with pri- types: in articulating thoroughfares, or unfavoured areas. It was also neces- ority given to the interests of the commu- facilities and service networks. sary to think of finding the politico- o m - o- u e THE OLYMPIC PORT economic mechanisms that would allow proper road network. This adaptation the wounds can be stitched up, the scars this change. Narcís Serra intuitively of Barcelona's communications net- can be removed and the immediate en- guessed the path that Pasqual Maragall work to today's needs -as far as it is vironment improved. These are strat- has since confirmed and followed with possible for a nineteenth century city to egic operations. determination until reaching the object- resist the overwhelming invasion of the The Vall d'Hebron was a large gap in ive. The path taken was none other motor car-, with the construction of the city where things were supposed to than that of applying for Barcelona to two large ringroads, one along the coast happen, because it had for a long time host the 1992 Olympic Games. On 17 and one inland, surrounding the city been earmarked as the site of the in- October 1986 Barcelona was nominated and linking it to al1 the exits and en- land, or second, ringroad, and it was a as the seat of the Olympics and the way trances, is another of the city's great sort of hollow, a valley, amongst the remained open. Without this, there urban operations carried out with the hills above Gracia and Collserola. It would not have been the money from excuse of 1992. had always been a hole, without any the different administrations to con- Another of the great urban transforma- recognizable shape, an open sore, ever front an important urban transforma- tions in the field of infrastructure ís the since the city started to climb the tion -in quantity and in modern crite- improvement of the city's network of southern slopes of those hills of Gracia ria- in the short term, nor would it have sewers, which it has at last been poss- and drop down the northern side, and been possible to encourage the city to ible to build -as has been thought ne- residential or council estates were hold on for six years with the incon- cessary since the end of last century- and placed perched below the Carretera de venience of being an alrnost permanent from now on, having spectacularly in- les Aigües. The Olympic area of the Vall construction site. Maragall is the person creased the capacity of the stormdrains, d'Hebron has been conceived as a large who has created and maintained this the endemic inundations of Poblenou sports park with its gardens and open- faith in the future. (It is worth seeing every time the autumn storrns fe11 on air spaces and its indoor installations, the stubbornness with which the people Barcelona will be avoided. and completed with an important hous- of Barcelona spend their Sundays wan- The four Olympic areas are located in ing project. This has allowed a new dering around the building work, cu- border areas between the formalized project for the inland ringroad, with an rious, critica1 and admiring, defying city and the urbanistic chaos of the pe- urban approach, connecting it via a fences and prohibitions). riphery, in places where the city's un- road network and the la Rovira tunnel The great urban transformation Barce- checked growth has left ugly scars; to Guineueta, Horta and Gracia. This lona is undergoing is located mainly in places where the differences are not valley has allowed the successful estab- what have been called the four Olympic only in the urban fabric, but also in the lishment of fast, transversal communi- areas: Avinguda Diagonal, Vall #He- social fabric. These urban transforma- cation which does not isolate, but bron, Montjuic and Nova Icaria. These tion operations, then, as a result of the which, because of its urban design tak- four areas are undergoing a profound characteristics of the areas chosen, are ing into account the surrounding fab- transformation of the urban fabric, but capable of driving the transformation ric, links the districts on either side of this transformed fabric would not sur- undertaken out to the surrounding area it, those at the foot of Collserola and vive if it could not be sustained by a by osmosis. With these improvements, those on the northern slopes of the hills THE OlYMPlC PORT &+:+"'Y &+:+"'Y of El Carmel. The argument of the --- ,,S@ means of a coherent communications di'innnm&kDI large-scale sports facilities with an im- " .: network and a rational system of urban mediate programme fitted to the 1992 $brelation between buildinns and open-air Olympic Games has been successful for tying the city together and establishing a decent-sized green area. gether ani old' way, into the brderly The top of Avinguda Diagonal is an- sidewalks of the most representative other Olympic area. The choice is a u entrance to Barcelona. Montjuic, obviously, had to be the good one, because for some time now it 7 has been full of sports installations be- THE OLYMPlC PORT Olympic area par excellence. It had had longing to private clubs (Barcelona, a stadium since 1929. The park planned Polo, Laieta, Turó, etc.) and the Uni- by Forestier on the occasion of the 1929 versity, and was also an important en- area, when this was so important since International Exhibition had started to trance to and exit from Barcelona for the outermost limits of Esplugues and develop the mountain but the work had the rest of Catalonia and the Spanish L'Hospitalet meet in this corner of Bar- stopped half way. Now was the right capital, but al1 a bit of a shambles be- celona. moment to complete it. The reforma- cause no-one had ever planned anything The object of this operation has been tion of the stadium, complemented by other than the line of a high-capacity the implantation of the Torre Melina the other important Olympic sports ins- main street that already formed part of Hotel and the drawing together of al1 tallations -the great esplanade, the Sant Ildefons Cerda's excellent 1 859 plan. the existing sports and university facili- Jordi palace, the Picornell swimming Apart from this, there was no town- ties, which until now were merely juxta- baths- and the conquest, with the park, planning project for the surrounding posed. This has been achieved by of the whole of the mountain, make THE OLYMPlC STADIUM Montjuic into a great park, at once ted, because the railway lines coming sporting and cultural. Cultural because from the Estació de Franca and leading, it will al1 be presided over by the Palau on the coastal side, towards the Mares- Nacional, cleverly restored as the Na- m me, and on the city side towards the tional Museum of Art of Catalonia ;Placa de les Glories, had made it inac- (MNAC).