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Joan Busquets
Professor in Practice Urban Planning and Design |
Publications
Catalunya Continental: Rail Infrastructure as the Backbone for Development
The central theme of the Studio was to guage the impact of new 21st-century infrastructures at the territorial scale and find new ways of enhancing the processes of configuration and design. The Studio actually simulates scenarios for new infrastructures developed in different topographic conditions and territories with an established tradition of culture and urban development, where the superposition of footprints and layouts has with time organized the systems of occupation and use. The recent completion of the TGV (high-speed train) line in Lleida is already transforming the city and its immediate vicinity, but its induced effects will almost certainly influence other infrastructures or secondary networks that will benefit from the new threshold produced by this implantation. This may be the case of the secondary railway line that starts in Lleida and heads north, ending at La Pobla de Segur. If we extend this line, it takes us to the Pyrennes and/or Andorra, both major tourist attractors with very different horizons and offers. A study of possible transformations, in all cases assessing environmental impact, may serve as a basis for a critical discussion of their advisibility and, therefore, deciding their legitimacy or viability. The idea is to simulate how, using the intermediate scall (commonly referred to as urban design, so highly influenced by territorial decisions), we can improve the development of infrastructures and, therefore, definitively influencing them. It is generally accepted that there is a strong association of macroeconomic and political decisions with large-scale infrastructures. It is equally true that the territorial and urbanistic conditions in which new urban phenomena develop call for a greater rationality that draws together different scales to produce more efficient, integrative action. This is the case of adequate assessment of the impact of large infrastructures on the landscape and particularly their effect on activities and the existing geography. We also have to understand, however, that in some situations networks and systems may produce a different definition to infrastructures, which are often escessively organized according to their hierarchial structure or internal logic, more typical of a top-down decision-making system. We can therefore create paradigm models for the use and organization of a landscape whose backbone is formed by infrastructure which, in their capacity to enhance the territory, prove the advisability in social terms of implementing these infrastructures. Belief in a series of urbanistic projects that integrate infrastructure and landscape, existing activity and new programmatic demands, prompted the proposal of the Studio as a kind of "research by design", making it both a propositional and an evaluative mechanism. These were, at least, the initial intentions and the results are still open. . .
Olympic Sculpture Park for the Seattle Art Museum: Weiss/Manfredi
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design awards the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design to recognize urban design excellence through projects that contribute to the public realm of the city and improve the overall quality of life.As the ninth recipient of the Green Prize, the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park, designed by the firm ofWeiss/Manfredi, impressively achieves both goals. The design provides a strikingly beautiful (yet distinctly urban) Z-shaped park that stitches together three discrete sites. The project—a continuous green space with pedestrian pathways—traverses both a road and a rail line in the course of connecting the city to its formerly industrial waterfront. In doing so, it successfully amalgamates diverse components into a unified, extraordinarily pleasing design, integrating the city’s need for public open space and access to its waterfront with its continued infrastructure requirements. Any successful project addressing issues as complex as those involved in creating the Olympic Sculpture Park is the result of a well-choreographed effort involving a wide array of skills, not just those required for design, landscape planning, and engineering, but also those needed to build and realize the vision in practice.The Green Prize selection committee was particularly appreciative of the seamless manner in which Weiss/Manfredi worked with its distinguished array of collaborators to produce this extraordinary urban intervention. For their generous financing of the Veronica Rudge Green Prize and its collateral activities, I would like to give special thanks to the von Clemm family and to the Michael and Louisa von Clemm Foundation.Their support enables the school on a continuing basis to explore and recognize truly extraordinary projects in urban design worldwide. In addition, we are delighted that this award gives wide recognition to design initiatives that bring great creativity and sensitivity to the vital task of improving the urban realm.
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Vegueta-Triana Donde el Guiniguada Encuentra el Océano Introduction The centre of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, above the ravine and beside the sea
This project seeks to establish a new relation between the old town and the public spaces that surround it, particularly along the seafront and the Guiniguada ravine. Historically, the strategic function of Vegueta and Triana as the seminal centers of Las Palmas can be explained by their role as bridgeheads over the ravine and beside the sea. Las Palmas, like so many cities, first modernized its traffic infrastructures by using interstitial spaces, with little heed for other aspects of environment and quality that would today be mandatory. this involved covering over Guiniguada and establishing an even greater barrier between the two slopes and between the old town and the sea. The plan to re-scale city traffic therefore involved the construction of an exterior by-pass as part of the general structure, complemented by various connections between the interior and the coast to allow the removal of the Scalextric that impinged on the historic centre and dismantle the expressway that had been built over the channel in the ravine. The first action in the transformation of infrastructures was the suppression of the viaduct that has to date dominated the seafront. This strategy of re-naturalizing urban environments and creating public spaces could take the form of re-urbanizaing the ravine and converting the seafront in the old town into a large park. The idea, then, is to open up the ravine bed and address it as a space of urban interest, making it permeable to pedestrians and bicycles, and creating the necessary direct relation between Vegueta and Triana. The modification of the motorway layout produces 5 hectares of green space as a park beside the sea at the mouth of the ravine. the opening up and development of the ravine bed also serves to create a cross section with walks for a kilometer along either side that will link up with an inland park of 20,000 m2 recovered from the former road junction. The aim is to reverse the use of a series of public spaces which have been occupied by water and traffic infrastructures, built independently of the historic layout and the scale of the old city. These spaces can now be converted by means of a series of actions and/or projects that share an integrative overview that ensures the functionality of the city and redefines its seafront. Funding is primarily public, with investment by the City Council, the Cabildo and other institutions to sponsor this urban project for the city centre. The phases have been simulated to analyse the progress of the various stages, for which a period of construction of approximately eight years is envisioned. The opened-up ravine with walks to either side and bridges will be able to accommodate civic and cultural activities. Ramps and recreational use of the ravine bed, generally dry, add recreational and cultural attractions to those of the rehabilitated old town. Parque del Océano becomes the great urban space in the centre, beside the rehabilitated Pérez Galdós Theatre, the market and Vegueta as a symbolic reference of existing activities. The presence of the water would represent an added attraction to that of the greenery. Access to the sea's edge without the nuisance of traffic marks the first inroad on the future use of the seafront as a large civic space for the city.
Cidade Antiga e Novo Projecto Urbano
As part of the Polis programme in Viseu, the necessity of urban requalificatiaon and environmental value of the location of the fair of “São Mateus” is defined, in the joining of two intervention axies, north-south, with the requalification of “Cava de Viriato”, and east-west, with the environmental value of the involvement of the “Rio Pavia”. We define “Promenade” as the intention of generation a new dynamic to the Pavia River shores, more associated with the Park and with the activities, in the Fair. The Forum establishes usages with a great power of attraction for this façade. In this new pedestrian sidewalk, we propose a balcony in a belvedere shape, along the river, to the bridge next to the old electrical power plant. Two ramps for pedestrians and soft stairways facilitate the connection from the “Promenade” to the Cava de Viriato, in terms of the river level and the visual corridor. The set of residential buildings with elliptic section and private terraces stand out in the volumetry of Block II. The morphology of these condominiums allows the distribution to be highly flexible, and with the same conditions it will be possible to teach the development of 26 households of lower surface, per unit. Seen from the Park, these double buildings appear to be rocks craved in the lower part of the cliff and next to the river. Their openness leads to the José M. Pinto Street and are directed to the gardened patios that are used by the lower floor residences. This profile in elliptical section minimizes the impact on the urban landscape and defines the city boundaries in the river shores.
Cities X Lines: A New Lens for the Urbanistic Project
Cities: 10 Lines — A New Lens for the Urbanistic Project documents three years of faculty research seminars at the Harvard Graduate School of Design that focused on the development of a pedagogic taxonomy to frame the methods and tools with which designers currently shape cities and open territories. The work documented in the catalogue presents the significant shifts designers have made in their projection of the city. Over the past three decades, new techniques in working the built environment have been deployed in multiple settings, interacting with a wide array of cultures, scales and intensities. Furthermore, the notion that urban grounds can be successfully refurbished is gaining clout rapidly, while the innovative nature of these interventions is creating spaces of an unprecedented urban quality. The scope of Cities: 10 Lines focuses broadly on:
This investigation frames the role of the designer in the built environment as well as possible strategies and/or actions that can be taken upon encountering different projects and contexts. Furthermore, Cities: 10 Lines serves as an additional initiative to develop a stronger urban culture that is more attuned to a post-industrial condition and acknowledges its inherent potential for unprecedented forms of urbanity. The catalog documents the most significant, worldwide case studies of each approach and traes back to precedents and referents, establishing a theoretical framework and critical assessment of each line of work. In parallel with this catalog, Cities 10 Lines has also been presented in an exhibition format, which opened at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in December 2005, and is currently traveling throughout multiple continents.
Quito: A Flatbed Site As An Agent For A New Centrality This book, from the Harvard GSD, takes the current Mariscal Sucre International Airport grounds (soon to be vacated when the aiport is relocated) as a point of departure for an extensive exploration of the relationship between Quito's organizational directives and its broader orographic condition. Through diverse cartographic exercises and well-tempered drawings, the city is represented in order to ignite creative thought about the forms of open space that can colonize the void. San Francisco de Quito, a city anchored in the middle of the Andes, operates within the constraints of extremely rugged terrain. This publication takes the Mariscal Sucre Int'l Airport grounds, soon to be relocated, as a point of departure for an extensive exploration of the relationship between the city's organizational directives and its broader orographic condition. Spanish/English. A Coruña: A Nova Cidade Marítima No Porto
Introduction, A. Background With a view to improving the environmental conditions in which the shipping, handling and temporary storage of certain goods takes place in the port of A Coruña and La Ria, the Port Authority and the State are constructing the outer harbour of Punta Langosteira. The aim of this is to strengthen Spain's general port system, and to improve and make more dynamic the competitiveness of the transport sector, especially that of Galicia and specifically that of the metropolitan area de A Coruña. This does not represent the disappearance of the functions of the presentday port, which will continue to operate for shipping that is not transferred, but it will enable the urban restructuring of large spaces that will be freed up in the actual port and on railway land belonging to San Diego station, and their urbanistic integration. The project seeks to improve the city's seafront and the quality of the urban environment by encouraging interrelation between city, port and sea and obtaining new spaces for civic use, and promoting citizen access to quality social dwellings at affordable prices. These are the objectives behind the "Agreement for the urban planning of certain tracts of the present-day port of A Coruña and San Diego railway station, with the associated improvements to the urbanistic structure of the city and the construction of new port installations at Punta Langosteira", which stipulates the bases on which the planned reform is to be structured. This agreement also envisages, prior to the design of planning instruments, the drafting of a master plan to propose ways of achieving the objectives tabled. This document is a summary of that plan. Apart from the sectors specified in the agreement, but still in the context of the urban seafront, the document also incorporates As Jubias, which presents a very specific situation, ranging from its difficult relation with city structures to its attractive position beside the ria in A Coruña. In addition to promoting the creation of important parts of the city, the transformation will also see a return to a natural relation with the expanse of water in the port, freeing up spaces that have until now been inaccessible to most citizens, due to the need, for safety reasons, to restrict free access to port installations. It must also, however, enable a qualitative improvement of urban activity by creating large areas that can be connected to the city's structure of open spaces and facilities. B. The urbanistic scope of the proposals The master plan seems to lay the bases for this far-reaching urbanistic transformation of the city of A Coruña and its huge area of influence. Although the origins of the city lie in this space around the port, its major development had little to do with the port's geography. It was only after the dismantling of industrial activity in the port that the city began to establish freer relations with its seafront context. Below are some of the most relevant actions: a) Possibility of reusing large spaces of the docks or land platforms in contact with the water. The largeness of these spaces ensures the creation of a new threshold that enables the city to incorporate: 1) central activities which, due to lack of land, have gravitated to the periphery in search of accessibility and low costs; 2) the creation of large facilities and open spaces, and 3) residential areas to respond to the demand for different types of reasonably priced housing. b) Capacity to restructure existing districts by improving accessibility and connection with the new seafront. Green corridors will ensure their judicious location and development. c) Improved urban structure with the creation of avenues following the arc of the coast to provide viewpoints near the water and places for people to stroll. The closeness of the various monuments could lead to the creation of an ambitious port promenade like those in some of Europe's foremost ports, such as Palma, Trieste, Genoa or Amsterdam. d) However, transformation will also involve recycling important parts of the protected expanse of water, which, though maintaining many present-day activities such as fishing, recreation and passenger traffic, may incorporate many new initiatives that to emerge in the course of the process. The master plan therefore suggests potential spaces for very varied recreation and leisure activities. It even considers the possibility of creating a kind of enclosed lake (beside the Muelle del Centenario wharf) with a constant water level to create a new "aquatic space" with singular emblematic characteristics. By means of this system of uses, the city will be able to recover the attractiveness with which its natural geography endowed it. The master plan therefore establishes a general urbanistic "vision" to develop the prescriptions of the Agreement, at the same time formulating a transformation strategy that can be implemented by parts, responding to a coherent programmatic logic. Although taking place at different times, they will be connected. In this process it is important for each part to contribute public-use spaces that generate new uses for this duly recovered seafront.
New Orleans: Strategies for a City in Soft Land
"One of the oldest cities in North America, New Orleans is now in urgent
need of rebirth, following the worst catastrophe to befall an
American city since at least the San Francisco earthquake of
1906...Fortuitously, the present study was completed just weeks before
Katrina. It is the product of an urban design studio at Harvard's Graduate
School of Design (GSD), organized by Professor in Practice Joan Busquets
and Visiting Critic Felipe Correa. Its focus is the evolution of New Orleans'
natural and built environments since the earliest days of human
(Indian) settlement. And its principal mode of investigation is through
cartography and mapping, delineating the topographic character and numerous
layers of development at each stage in the city's history.
Barcelona: the Urban Evolution of a Compact City
Barcelona can be regarded as a prototype of a European Mediterranean city with a long urban tradition. As such, it has undergone a specific process of historic formation: density and compactness of urban form, evolution by extension rather than by reform, etc. A history of urban planning necessarily includes a summary of the territorial and urban experience, and pays particular attention to the physical dimensions of the city that condition its cultural and economic development. This book centers on the construction of Barcelona, taking as its basis the most important planning operations and city projects, and drawing on various sources for the different phases. Its urban development was very varied, even without taking into account the interventions of royalty or aristocrats that produced large avenues and parks. The local scale of many of the projects contrasts with the cosmopolitan aspirations that have made some of these interventions so innovative, these might include some of the major projects carried out for special events, such as the events in 1888 (World Exhibition), 1929 (Electrical Industries Exhibition) and 1992 (Olympic Games). Now in the 21st century, new prospects are opening up thanks to the recent European institutional framework, particularly changes in the economic system to a post industrial phase, during which the various means of communication are coming to the fore. It is difficult to gauge the spatial repercussions, but the urban planning history of Barcelona shows how it has already overcome major contradictions in recent centuries.
Aleppo: Rehabilitation of the Old City Edited by Joan Busquets
As the eight recipient of the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design, the City of Aleppo in northern Syria shares a special distinction, alongside Mexico City and Barcelona, as one of the few cities to receive such an award. Since 1986, the Green Prize has established a means by which the Harvard Design School community can recognize international urban design excellence through projects that contribute to the public realm of the city and improve the overall quality of urban life. The ancient City of Aleppo has accomplished this task in recent years with very great distinction. The City of Aleppo and German Technical Cooperation [GTZ] have worked in collaboration since 1994 on the implementation of strategies for the rehabilitation of the Old City. Designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, the Old City maintains an authentic and intact historic urban fabric, which consistently references its 5,000 years of habitation and urban life. The rehabilitation projects understand and respect this living history, which the City of Aleppo and the GTZ so carefully nurture. The difficulty of operating in such a fragile and unique context only strengthens the argument for awarding this year's prize to Aleppo, which earned this distinction by impressing a distinguished jury that considered many noteworthy urban design projects nominated by professionals and academics from around the world. Thanks are due to the people and institutions that have helped make this prize possible. Special thanks go to the von Clemm family and to the Michael and Louisa von Clemm Foundation for their generous financing of the Veronica Rudge Green Prize and its collateral activities. Their support enables the school on a continuing basis to explore and recognize truly extraordinary projects in urban design worldwide. In addition, we are delighted that this award gives wide recognition to design initiatives, exemplified this year by Aleppo's that bring great creativity and sensitivity to the vital task of improving the urban realm.
Six Projects for Den Haag
This publication brings together a series of urbanistic projects that have been carried out since 1991 and share the spatial scope of the downtown of The Hague. The programme, methodological approach and operative development of each of the six projects are very different. Their presentation sequentially and in a group may help to reveal the major opportunities involved in work on a central urban space from the viewpoint of urban rehabilitation which, if presented individually would probably not stand out in the same relief. The various projects share the same scale of approach of city design based on the intermediate scale. It seems that this scale is suitable for drawing up proposals that, taking into account real development data in the mid-term, can offer an overview that contains a hypothesis for the transformation of the central area of The Hague. The proposals presented here are normally referred to as urban projects, or as proposals for the reconfiguration of public space, or the restructuring of the city centre, or the development of a piece of urban architecture, or else as a master plan for the creation of a new downtown in the city. They might all be said to seek the creation of a new urbanity for the existing city. The works are described in terms of a conceptualization of the urbanistic project and carried out from the viewpoint of a practice that is not from the municipality or even the same country, but one that has had the critical monitoring and technical backing of the various municipal and central authorities. Without this synergy, most of these proposals would not have the validity and the meaning that time has given them. The projects respond to different missions and scopes, and are located between the city's main entrances by rail and motorway, and in the environs of the historic centre, a seminal feature of The Hague. As this booklet will show, this is a paradigm space for modern urbanism since, after World War II, very different outlines and projects were superposed in relatively short periods of time. The proposals described here have enjoyed a continuity and superposition in space that renders them quite singular, yet each of them has moved according to very varying times and programmatic indications. there is no prior definition of the works as a whole - each project was addressed independently in time and was therefore able to use and redirect the accumulated experience of its forerunners. This is another possible motive for bringing them together in one booklet. Reflection on the overlapping and mutual relations of the projects is not the content of this publication; its basic purpose is to present readers with the material of plans, to a large extent carried out, but which also includes the outlines and projects that were drawn up and not implemented. We consider that an appraisal of these urbanistic projects should include those that have been executed but also those that have been called off because their processes gave rise to other data that invalidated or postponed tem, and that now form part of the memory of a possible city.
Bringing the Harvard Yards to the River "The work collected in this book captures spaces and buildings,
domains and landscapes, university and city, urban fabric and singular
elements. Through the unprecedented construction of a ground plan
that encompasses the entire Harvard Campus, the book presents a
synthetic rendition of the University's physical reality which allows
for a better understanding of its everyday spaces. Furthermore,
the dynamic changes of layers and view frames foster an acute reading
of the different elements that make up this unique setting, and
awaken in the reader an infinite number of interpretations and mental
itineraries. Hence, this ground plan becomes a tool that easily
transmutes from floor plan to map to navigational guide in order
to accommodate the ways in which the Harvard dwellers and visitors
want to interpret and modify their most immediate realities.
Un progetto europeo per Trento Following the urban revolution of 1500 fostered by Bernardo Clesio, the Prince Bishop, the diversion of the river Adige and the construction of the railway by the Austrians in the mid-nineteenth century, another urban revolution is now taking place in Trento. The new town plan for the city is the work of the Catalan architect and Harvard professor Joan Busquets. This epic making transformation revolves around two cardinal points—the railway and the river. By tunneling the railway underground and re-appropriating the river, the city will gain space for a great boulevard which in turn will permit the development of the public transport system, with trams, an over-ground, light railway and the gradual phasing out of private traffic. In planning the new Trento, this world class master of urban design, will also limit the chaotic development of the years following the second World War and reconcile the city to its surrounding territory where not only the river, but a framework of mountains constitute its most characteristic feature.
Barcelona: La Construcción
urbanística de una ciudad compacta
El libro toma la construcción de Barcelona como eje principal, a partir de las operaciones de configuración o proyectos de ciudad más relevantes. Para ello se utilizan distintas fuentes a to largo de su recorrido. Su desarrollo urbano sera muy diverso, sin contar nunca con las intervenciones—reales o aristocráticas—que han producido grandes avenidas y parques. La escala local de muchos de los proyectos contrasta con la voluntad cosmopolita que ha dado un caracter innovador a a1gunas de sus actuaciones: destacan ahí algunos de los grandes proyectos realizados a plazo fijo, como aquellos para los eventos de 1888 (Exposición Universal), 1929 (Exposición de Industrias Eléctricas), 1992 (Olimpiada)... En este nuevo siglo XXI se abren nuevas perspectivas gracias al reciente marco institucional europeo y, sobre todo a los cambios en el sistema económico orientado hacia una fase post-industrial, en el que toman fuerza los distintos modos de comunicación. Las repercusiones espaciales son difíciles de evaluar, pero la historia urbanística de Barcelona demuestra cómo ha superado ya otras grandes contradicciones en los últimos siglos. Joan Busquets: A New Metropolitan Entrance for Barcelona
As in the past, entrances to most cities come by way of roads, and usually along broad arterials that move travelers inexorably in towards city centers from the outlying hinterlands. Unlike in the past, however, the entrance itself is no longer confined to a single moment of crossing some threshold, breaching a wall, or going through a gate. Instead, the roadway itself and its abutting properties form the entrance or, erather, entry sequence to contemporary cities, usually for several kilometers. Furthermore, the imporatance of this sequence of arrival has been made even more significant by the inevitable placement of larger transportation hubs—like airports—on the periphery of most cities, where there is ample space and room for expansion. Unfortunately, through these entry roadway environments rarely receive explicit design attention, as did the often splendid city gates of the past, and often remain in a poorly-considered and circumstantial state. (Its as if visitors are expected to close their eyes after leaving the shiny airport terminals only to open them once they have truly arrived in the city proper, with a sort of spatio-temporal parenthesis in between.) In fact, modern-day arrival in Barcelona, with movement along the Grand Via from across the Llobregat River into the city center, is no exception to these contemporary conditions. Therefore, the urban design and planning problem set by Professor Joan Busquets is both an important general class of problem, applicable to many cities, as well as being a problem of specific significance to Barcelona—the city in which it was set. Within this general class of problem, and its application to Barcelona, several other important issues emerge immediately. When we say 'entry sequence,' for instance, how should such a sequence be formulated spatially? Should it be a carefully orchestrated succession of buildings and elements of infrastructure as signs, symbols and markers along the way? Should it simply try to make a horizontal cross-section through the city more visible and more intelligible? Or, should it strive to have its own internal coherence, a little like an elongated gateway? Then too, there are technical issues associated with roadway alignments, accommodation of traffic of different kinds, and resolving the need for movement in many different directions. For example, along the Gran Via, as elsewhere in similar circumstances, there is a need to provide for volumes of high-speed traffic, moving from the inner-city barriers to perpendicular movement and to the urban development that usually follows these flows of movement. However, they may also be regarded as seams or as centers of activity, rather than as edges, depending upon how local roadways and surrounding buildings are constructed and how movement patterns are orchestrated. Also, in another set of issues, opportunities are presented for re-development and re-vitalization of the city-building process, by focusing urban design attention on roads like the Gran Via. Adjacent perfunctory building layouts, for instance, have the opportunity to become better resolved. Well-made sections of town can be extended and special institutional, or other locations, can receive the prominence they deserve. In the following pages of this publication you will see various responses to thes issues among the proposals and, in effect, to the general class of problem of how to approach the new, modern-day making of an entrance to a large metropolitan area like Barcelona. Of interest is the sheer variety and scope of compelling ways this kind of general problem seems able to be tackled frome ssentially the same baseline conditions. This may be a reflection of the times, where there is no hegemonic design paradigm in place that would otherwise unify individual design proposals. It also may be due to the vagueness of many surrounding site circumstances, allowing for multiple interpretations, although we would also like to think that it has to do with the creative imaginations of the individual designers and planners involved. In any event, in what follows there is some questioning of conditions already in place and taken for granted, considerable useful design speculation, and much food for though.
La ciutat vella de Barcelona: un passat amb futur The book you are reading presents the model of the city that we defend. It is a model that understands the city as a space of co-habitation between persons, beliefs, cultures and languages, of which Ciutat Vella is the best example. Barcelona is open, diverse and participative; it is a cosmopolitan city, open to new ideas, new persons and new projects. This exemplary co-habitation is one of our main attractions. Cities are places of exchange and this exchange occurs in the public space. It is a Mediterranean metropolis, in which the city is measured by the quality of the public space. This is why we are creating more meeting places to facilitate contact between citizens, more streets, more pavements and more places where the people of Barcelona can stroll, walk and enjoy their city. Barcelona is being transformed according to a general scheme. Each and every action carried out in the neighborhoods corresponds to this model of the city. Behind each scheme there is a concept, and the services that are offered to the citizens respond to an idea of how we want to live and function. Behind each new store that we lay in Ciutat Vella there is the spirit of our city—the pride of making Barcelona, of showing our capacity for enterprise and our ambition to be up-to-date and to allow everyone to develop their full potential and exercise their citizenship. We maintain and foster te social cohesion of Barcelona by responding to the new needs and legitimate requirements of the citizens, turning every part of the city into the city centre, in order to create a friendly Barcelona in which everyone can enjoy quality of life.
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