Tag: City

on the w@terfront. 3 new issues in RACO

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2019 vol. 61/3

Roadmap for the Integration of the Vertical Plane to the Urban Landscape

Héctor Vázquez de la Rosa, Sofía Bastidas Mora

The Plan for the Integration of the Vertical Plan to the Urban Landscape describes the design proposals made for the improvement of the vertical plan of the public space of Bon Pastor, a Barcelona neighborhood that belongs to the District of Sant Andreu, bordering the Besòs River. From the vertical plane, we will focus on the cases of the dividing wall and the wall, specifically on those deficient surfaces of urban design quality in visual, thermo-acoustic, energy, environmental and sustainability terms.
However, with the intention of carrying out a process of integral design of the space, the solutions contemplate interventions in the rest of the envelope; in this way, for the improvement of the medians, the intervention in the façade becomes imperative, and in the case of the walls, the reformulation of the adjoining space. All this leads us to three axes of juxtaposed interventions to solve the same problem, for which we have deepened in the referents of treatment of vertical plane and other analogous models in the context of the city of Barcelona.
A first action will be the elaboration of the Plan of Color of Bon Pastor that affects the entire envelope of the building, exemplified by the dividing walls of the Felix Rodríguez de la Fuente square, the facades and medians of the buildings of the street of Mare Eterna and the facades of the housing estates of Lima Street. A second axis will involve the sustainable intervention of the La Colmena building, carried out by the architect Oriol Bohigas, as well as the surrounding housing estates, introducing the top plane of the public space through the green roof. Finally, a third exercise will include the reformulation of the persistent unresolved voids, which enhance the visual impact of the walls and medians to which they adjoin. This section will be developed through the generation of a ride in the current parking lot of Lima Street, the promotion of temporary uses in empty lots -proposed in the exercise through the realization of a cinema in the empty lot opposite the station. Metro de Bon Pastor- and the creation of a public space in the informal parking lot between Sant Adrià, Formiga, de l’Estadella and Flix streets, which will be associated with our citizen participation process.

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Water61_2_1_1a.jpgJordi Henrich. A vision of Barcelona and its public space

Celeste Pereira Cubilla, Jordi Henrich
Jordi Henrich has been one of the protagonists of the development of the public space of Barcelona over more than two decades, both from his activity as municipal architect, architect of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona and his private professional activity. This article studies the characteristics of the public space – the ones it has and the ones it should have – through the gaze of this architect who creates the Barcelona that can be encompassed in the so-called “Barcelona Model”. It is organized as an interview that has been edited by the Editorial Board of the Journal to expand some references related to the development of the contents of the article.

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Water61_1_1b.jpgFrom sculpture to post-muralism. Public Art Policies in Urban Regeneration processes

Antoni Remesar
The objective of this work is to address the relationships between the processes of urban regeneration and public art. A difficult and complicated issue due, in large part, to the polysemy of the two concepts, to the enormous disparity of political, urban and artistic practices, and to influence areas where the cultural vision of the empire predominates. As in other areas of the arts, and social and human sciences, in recent decades there has been a very uncritical consideration of the mainstream of the disciplines with respect to assuming the thesis of the literature from the US. and also, of the Anglo-Saxon world. As is well known, this bibliography is based solely on the experiences and reflections developed in its environment without considering what happens in the rest of the world. This attitude demonstrates the value of cultural penetration, imperialist, in the field of the referred disciplines. In any case, it seems pertinent to speak of urban regeneration from urban processes, developed throughout the world, after the Second World War. This concept brings together diverse and disparate realities, relating to urban practices for the renewal of urban fabrics, new fabrics and historical fabrics, within the framework of the processes of economic and social development that took place in the period from 1945 to 1973 , with an enormous impact on human growth -migrations and concentration of the population in a few areas of the territory- and on the physical development of cities, dominated by urban planning criteria and by the functionalist thinking of the Modern Movement in the framework of the consolidation of the Welfare State. These processes were based on the belief in physical determinism on the part of those who design intervention policies, in such a way that, based on this alleged link between physical and social aspects, “the renovation of the physical aspects of the neighbourhood was used to solve eminently social problems (for example, through the extreme case of demolition – same houses in good condition – and reconstruction) “(Pareja-Eastaway, M, 2007). It is in this context that we can also talk about Public Art. In effect, these urban transformations are closely associated with a set – diverse and differentiated – of artistic interventions on the territory and on the constructed, generally propitiated within the framework of public policies linked to Urban Regeneration. Finally, we will analyze the evolution of these relations, when the transition from industrial to post-industrial societies takes place in the context of the so-called “third industrial revolution” and the role that the political incorporation of marginal graffiti practices has had in the substitution? of the previous policies of public art in what we call post-muralism.

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“Mataró Ideal City” by Jordi Henrich, wins the contest for Centre Development Strategic Plan

Ending 2017 the Mataro`s City Council launched a contest in order to draw a  strategic plan for the centre of the city.

“The aim of the Ideas Contest is to design a strategy and a model that includes economy, urban development, architecture, mobility and economic, cultural and social development in its actions to allow the city centre to be put forward as a motor of cultural activity, of trade and tourism within a single discourse that revalues its legacy of history and heritage.
The selected proposal will become the strategic instrument to develop the Mataró Centre Development Strategic Plan”. Continue reading “Mataró Ideal City” by Jordi Henrich, wins the contest for Centre Development Strategic Plan

Public space: the use of vertical and air planes

Journal of a Gadabout (14) by Dr. A. Remesar

The public space is structured in four planes: that of the ground, the vertical (not exclusively of facade); the plane of the air and a fourth plane that can be called zenital. The most studied is the horizontal plane, built from infrastructures, elements of urban service (lighting, vegetation, signage, etc.) and interfacing with urban systems (water, electricity, gas, etc.), with the omnipresent elements of paving. (see)

The study of the vertical plane is reduced to the analysis of the facades, although the vertical containment of public space goes beyond the facades. (see)

Continue reading Public space: the use of vertical and air planes

Francoist symbols in Barcelona

Journal of a Gadabout (13) by Dr. A. Remesar

In Decembre 2007 it was approved the LAW 52/2007, of December 26, by which rights are recognized and extended and measures are established in favor of those who suffered persecution or violence during the civil war and the dictatorship. This Law is known as Law of Historical Memory. Continue reading Francoist symbols in Barcelona

“URBAN POLARITIES. Aesthetic Energy of the City, 3rd International Conference” Call for Papers

LODZ 25th- 27th October 2018

AIMS
The aim of the conference is to critically explore the role of urban art and urban design in shaping the public sphere.  The topic of this conference – urban polarization and urban polarities,  is aimed at expanding the discussion of the aesthetic experience of the city and the role of various forms of urban creativity – street art, fine arts, architecture and greenery in the processes of urban regeneration and redefinition of city spaces. We would like to look upon the completed and ongoing projects of urban revitalisation and renewal to ask what those changes have taught us, what lessons can be drawn from successful and unsuccessful undertakings. With its specific historical, social and economic characteristics and its present endeavours at revitalisation and redevelopment, Lodz presents itself as an interesting scene for such observations. While discussing the question of urban polarization we would like to reflect on visual, spatial and social polarities that projects of urban renewal might challenge, as well as aesthetic and historical polarities ingrained in urban fabric and everyday life of a city. Continue reading “URBAN POLARITIES. Aesthetic Energy of the City, 3rd International Conference” Call for Papers

“BUILDING REMEMBRANCE” EXHIBITED IN PUEBLA

From 1st June to 7 july, the cultural centre “LA MONJA” at the Benemerita Universidad de Puebla (México) shows the itinerant exhibition “Baró de Viver & Bon Pastor. Urban Cohesion. Building Remembrance”. The exhibition is a first act of the 1st International Conference  In Civic Participation in city making organized by Facultad de Arquitectura BUAP, Universitat de Barcelona and Re Genera Espacio  Continue reading “BUILDING REMEMBRANCE” EXHIBITED IN PUEBLA