Barcelona as urban palimpsest: Architectonic memory and structural violence in José Luis Guerin's En construcción (2001)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article presents an analysis of the Spanish director José Luis Guerin's “documental ficticio” titled En construcción (2001). In particular, I will examine the filmic representation of urban and architectonic spaces within post-industrial Barcelona, as well as the relationship of space and place to the construction of historical (post)memory in post-Francoist Spain, as “lieux de memoire.” While contemporary Spanish film has tended toward the engagement of Franco's lingering specters, I contend that Guerin's filmic discourse rather focuses on the new totalitarian state imposed by the emergence of social democracy and free-market capitalism in post-Francoist Spain, as inscribed via the urban architecture within Barcelona's public spaces.