| back to Recent Releases | ||
 |
Barcelona; the Urban
Evolution of a Compact City
Joan Busquets Nicolodi and Actar in association with Harvard University Graduate School of Design |
|
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 the 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 condiiton its cultural and economic development.
This book centres 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 constrasts 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.
Contents
Index of illustrations
Introduction
From its origins to capital of the medieval Mediterranean
The birth of Barcelona. A two thousand year old city
The patterns of a Roman colony
Reuse of the Roman city and urban crisis
The re-birth of Barcelona
Social evolution in the Middle Ages leads to the creation of a new urban
world
The formation of Catalonia and the capital of the Counts
The Consell de Cent as the government of the City of the Counts
Medieval urban structure
Barcelona, capital of the Western Mediterranean
Maritime activity in the city without a port
The splendour of the Catalan Gothic
Cultural expansion and city development
The ideal city
From the urbanisation of the Raval to the start of industrialisation
The population crisis in Barcelona
The influence on the city of a change of dynasty
The consolidation of urban culture
Medieval production means and the city streets
The third town wall completes Ciutat Vella
Barcelona's Rambla
Barcelona and the Castilian kings
Columbus reaches Barcelona. Catalonia and the Americas
The Barcelona Plain and its surrounding farmland
A "difficult century", but one in which the port acquires
its definitive form
Urbanisation of the city
Decreto de Nueva Planta
The emergence of new ideas and the dawn of the modern city
Eighteenth-century Barcelona
The construction of the Citadel
Projects for the modern city and the demolition of the town
walls
The beginnings of modern urbanisation
Early industrialisation
Urban reform from within
Colonial infrastructure. Railways and roads provide urban interconnection
Criticism of the town walls
The Cerdà Plan, a pioneering work in Modern Urban Planning
Barcelona's Eixample Project in relation to other European cities
The development of Cerdà's Eixample and the Development Societies
Suburban models in the urban development of the Barcelona Plain
Barcelona, city of innovation
The demolition of the Citadel
The 1888 Great Exhibition
The search for a "Catalan national architecture"
Modernisme as an innovative trend
The consolidation of the Eixample
Urban utility infrastructures
The turn of the century and Greater Barcelona
Annexation of the municipalities in the Plain
"Gross-Barcelona" and the concept of capital city
The Interconnections Plan
A focus of cultural innovation
Urban reform from the outside
External transformations to Ciutat Vella
Noucentisme
The infrastructure of development: electrification and suburbanisation
New urban services and facilities
The parks system
The long march towards the 1929 Electrical Industries Exhibition
From Plaça d'Espanya to the river Llobregat
The Barcelona of a million inhabitants
Metropolitan problems and the new social dynamic
Regional planning in Catalonia
Accommodation as a problem in the modern city
The GATCPAC and the functional city
The Macià Plan and Le Corbusier
Bloc House and the Recreation and Holiday Resort
Dissolutionof the GATCPAC and the Civil War
The grey post-war years and the formation of the metropolis
Autocracy, reconstruction and shantytowns
City and Comarca
The dawn of the development policy
Top-heavy Barcelona and the system of Catalan Cities
The evolution of large infrastructures
The residential periphery
Speculation with land and suburbs
The transformation of the Eixample and the suburban plain
Patterns of pro-develoment expansion and political change.
Urban development and the Plans
From County Plan to Partial Plans
A fresh impetus in architecture and urban development
The major plans of the sixties: the Metropolitan Area
Speculative transformation and urban social movements
Crisis in the industrial sector
The General Metropolitan Plan
From opposition to democracy
Barcelona's recovery in the eighties. Urban development in
the form of projects, programmes and strategies
Urban relaunching under the new democratic City Council
Restructuring of the industrial system in the Metropolitan Area
New districts and the disappearance of the Metropolitan Area
The different scales of urban recovery
Urban rehabilitation
Urban restructuring
Other structural keys in the shaping of Barcelona
The Olympic Games for 1992
A look at the "special" projects
Barcelona, a European city. Another change of scale?
Post-Olympic Barcelona
New spatial dynamics
The various scales of new urban development projects
Big cities in Europe
Opportunities and weaknesses
Barcelona, a city with a future
Maps of the city
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Publication Title:
Barcelona; the Urban Evolution of a Compact City
Year Published:
2005, Nicolodi (Nicolodi editore, Rovereto Italia) and Actar in association
with Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Author:
Joan Busquets
Format:
468 pages, softcover.
In the Frances Loeb Library:
NA9224.B3 B8713 2005
Special Collections Rare NA9224.B3 B8713 2005
.