SOCIAL HOUSING IN URBAN CONTEXT
Barcelona has become a worldwide-recognized brand, in which architecture and urbanism have played a key role. To speak of the “Barcelona Model” means to tell a way of thinking of this very special city. Micro town planning interventions in the public space during de 80’s, later during the Olympic Games in 1992, and following the Forum of Cultures in 2004, were the cornerstones of a very important urban transformation. The revitalization of the city has provided added value to existing Works of Catalan Modernism. The birth of a Language of their own has led to concrete proposals for public spaces, very committed to the city. There was an evolution from the first “hard” square, the Plaça de Sants, to the Parc Diagonal Mar that culminates today with the recovery of the domestic courts of Barcelona’s Eixample, designed by Ildefons Cerdà.
One of the main elements of the “Barcelona Model” is the quality of residential buildings. The optimization of all types, especially in public housing units, brings together the knowledge inherited from the great architects of the ‘30s to ‘70s as Sert, Bonet, Coderch, Mitjans and Barba Corsini, among others. Several housing projects were built during the years of democracy and have become cultural references, among which we can mention those designed by Bohigas-Martorell-Mackey, Correa-Milà, Nadal, Pascual, Bofill, Viaplana-Piñón, Clotet-Paricio, Torres-Martínez Lapeña, Bonell, Llinàs, Ferrater …
Currently a younger generation of architects has been able to address the issue of new housing programs and, at the same time, sought to respond to the new social demands and urban areas. Many of these projects have the merit of proposing new types and new ways to integrate urban public space, creating new synergies, which during the boom years had been abandoned.
For these reasons we show the following housing projects, interesting for their relations with public space and for their contribution to the construction of a Barcelona that is constantly evolving.
Great succesful in the openning of the Cities Connection Project in Architekturforum Zürich with the exhibitions “Export BARCELONA. Social Housing in Urban Context” and “Import ZURICH_Cooperative housing: New Ways of Inhabiting” with more than 300 people that assisted to the event.
About 40 people (architects, sponsors, students…) travelled from Barcelona to Zurich and could enjoy guided visits to some of the cooperative housing buildings.
PREVIOUS CONNECTIONS
_EXPORT BARCELONA in Geneva, February 2015
SOCIAL HOUSING IN URBAN CONTEXT 05-22 February 2015
at Pavillon SICLI, Geneva (Switzerland)
Opening: 05 February 2015, 18.00h
with Vicente Guallart (Chief Architect of Barcelona City Council), Francesco Della Casa (Architect Cantonal) and Antonio Hodgers (Conseill d’État DALE)
_EXPORT BARCELONA in Ticino, October 2013
SOCIAL HOUSING IN URBAN CONTEXT 16—30 October 2013
at the Accademia di architettura Mendrisio, Ticino (Switzerland)
Opening: 15 October 2013, 19.00h
at Foyer, Palazzo Canavée, Accademia di architettura, Mendrisio
with Marc Collomb (director of the Accademia di architettura) & Esteve Bonell (architect)
