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A lot can be said about the people who live in a city by looking at the way it is designed. In Barcelona, the first thing that strikes you – apart from the dog overpopulation – is the omnipresence of benches. But why ? Investigation.
Is the population of Barcelona so lazy that the municipality saw fit to make them sit every 5 meters? Obviously, the answer is no. The benches are part of an urban planning project started almost 50 years ago, the entire core of which is based on the promotion of public space as a place for popular life.
Ariella Masboungi is an architect-urban planner, named Grand Prix de l’urbanisme 2016, formerly in charge of the Urban Project mission at the French ministry and notably author of “Barcelona, the innovative city” (ed. Le Moniteur, 2010); and she agreed to help us paint a portrait of Barcelona, this “city of pleasure”.
“Barcelona is a political project”
Concerning our question on the benches, Ariella Masboungi explains to us:
“There are several reasons for the increased presence of benches in Barcelona. First of all, this is due to the way of life of the Spanish, who live outside and who occupy public spaces: we must therefore make it pleasant. Barcelona is made up of 50% public space and the benches are part of this approach, to make a city where we want to sit. And we must remember that Barcelona, politically, was lucky to see socialist town halls succeed one another almost without interruption. This allowed for an urban planning project with more continuity than disruption. Under each new mandate, the concern to make public space accessible to all was in people’s minds. Barcelona is a political project. »
Since the end of Francoism, Barcelona has in fact experienced half a century of almost continuous socialism – with the exception of one right-wing mandate and two radical left mandates –, and the city has felt the effects. This ideological urbanism begins with the mandate of Pasqual Maragall (1982-1997), who recruited Oriol Bohigas, a great architect and visionary urban planner. The latter decides to entrust the development of the neighborhoods to a team made up of some of his best students, who build several blocks, within which they install benches and streets reserved exclusively for pedestrians. The construction of these spaces is extremely rapid, and Barcelona then becomes, according to Masboungi, “the mecca of urban planning”. It was also thanks to Buhas that Barcelona became the first city which, with the approach of its Olympic Games (1992), took the opportunity to remodel itself: “We have never seen this, such speed in execution! In France, we cannot do that, the technical services are bad and the elected officials do not make frank decisions”.
Note, also, the special status of Barcelona, a democratic, intellectual city, which favors pedestrians and exchange between people. Conversely, powerful, more liberal cities like Madrid give pride of place to road traffic, which facilitates the passage of cars and therefore of elites, car owners.
Gentrification and overtourism: modern problems
In Madrid or Barcelona, when we talk about town planning, the same problem appears: can a city die from its success? This is the – dizzying – question that urban planners in charge of large metropolises are asking themselves today. Barcelona, with its 85 million annual tourists and its growing popularity, obviously no longer has the same urban concerns as in the 1980s. But how can we keep a pleasant city while managing an increasingly significant flow? For Arielle Masboungi, several solutions are available to the Catalan city: “To counter this, we must develop social housing, block hotels in the center and deal with the Airbnb problem”.
A major challenge, but one that should not scare Barcelona, as the culture of town planning and the concern to make the pedestrian the heart of the city are established. At least this was the case until the election of Jaume Collboni (Socialist Party of Catalonia) as head of Barcelona town hall last June. While her predecessor Ana Colau (Barcelona en comú – radical left), had injected a substantial budget to scare away vehicles from the city, Collboni backpedals.
Credits: Equinox montage / Barcelona city hall image bank – Lucas Amillano, Clara Soler Chopo
One of the newly elected mayor’s first actions was to repaint Pelai Street – formerly covered with blue patterns by the communist town hall – in tar color and to provide it with new parking spaces for two-wheelers, bicycles and unloading trucks. Result: more vehicles and less breathing.
