Urbane infrastructures: how installations make a city in Barcelona

Abstract

During the last 30 years, the city of Barcelona has applied a particular method of designing large-scale infrastructure projects, regarding these interventions as positive opportunities rather than isolated artefacts that simply comply with specific technical requirements. Barcelona approaches these phenomena as architectures capable of making ‘a city’ by proposing simple yet sophisticated (and often elegant) solutions. This paper intends to explore the question: how can large infrastructures make a city? Using case studies from Barcelona it will ask: how can large infrastructures be integrated into the urban fabric thus avoiding a mere juxtaposition? This juxtaposition often creates a discontinuity in the urban fabric that results in poor accessibility, poor connectivity with the rest of the city and negative effects on land values, all of which are attributes of deprived urban areas. This paper aims to explain the thinking behind these projects, which could be described as the Barcelonés way of overcoming the issues posed by the integration of large infrastructures in the city by skilfully integrating often competing demands and pressures with the typical technical and pragmatic challenges that apply.