Architectural figures and urban structure : design for an infrastructural forum in Barcelona glories

Abstract: Cities, like any living organic system, go through different phases of transformation. The more they are flexible and open to changes, the more they are considered a dynamic and liveable cities which responds to different demands and needs of its inhabitants. A very good example of this flexibility can be found in the city of Barcelona which has been in a major transformation phase for almost an entire century. One of the areas in Barcelona, which has been in continuous renovation since 1895, when it was first designed by Catalan city planner Alfonso Cerda, is Plaça de les Glories catalanes. This area, which is located in the very centre of Barcelona, is a junction in which three important infrastructural axis of the city (Gran via, avenida diagonal and avenida Meridiana) meet each other and create one of the most important and densest infrastructural nodes in Europe. Nowadays, this area, like many other infrastructural nodes in many other metropolitan cities, has been neglected therefore; it does not contribute to the sustainable development which has been in progress in the capital of the region of Catalonia. Our project deals with the requalification of this vicinity and the creation of an infrastructural forum which can give a new identity to this zone. In addition to creating the infrastructural opening mentioned before, the project, as a crucial node of an organic urban system, attempts to connect and unify different points and figures of Barcelona. This objective has been carried out by means of different traces, figures and geometry which have made the identity of Barcelona throughout the history.