Información General

• Autores: Raquel Lacuesta Contreras, Antoni González
• Editores: Barcelona : Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.L.
• Año de publicación: 2002
• País: España
• Idioma: inglés
• ISBN: 84-252-1894-2
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)

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• Red de Bibliotecas Universitarias (REBIUN)

Índice

• 
  

  
  Contents:
  
  
  Authors and collaborators
  
  
  Introduction
  
  
  1929-1950
  
  1951-1977
  
  1978-2002
  
  
  Bibliography
  
  Index of names
  
  Index of locations
  
  Plan of Barcelona
  
  
  
  
  

Descripción principal

• 1929 and 1992 are two highly significant moments in the urban evolution of Barcelona. The first, marked by the great International Exhibition, saw the development of Montjuïc and completion of the avenues and promenades envisaged in the 1859 Cerdà Plan.
  In 1992, with the Summer Olympic Games, the city concluded a new and far more ambitious series of urban reforms, in which new architecture played a major part. This book has been structured in three parts: 1929-1950, the years dominated by the Noucentista architecture; 1951-1977, with a more diverse architecture -Group R, the Barcelona School- and an evident desire to open up to the outside world, and a third period, 1978-2002, in which political situation favoured major growth in public architecture. With a total of 162 entries, each comprising an explanatory text, one or two photographs and, in many cases, a plan, this guide offers a complete introduction to the best architecture constructed in Barcelona during the period 1929-2002.

Extracto del libro

• Introduction
  
  1929 and 1992 were two moments of great significance in the urban evolution of Barcelona. The first saw the opening of the International Exhibition, a great exposition originally conceived in 1917 in less ambitious terms (as an Electrical Industries Exhibition) which the military regime newly installed in Spain in 1923 decided to promote onto a more profitable scale. This provided the opportunity for the city -which has always made the most of such occasions to set itself in order and make some long-cherished dream come true to develop the emblematic promontory lapped by the sea that we Barcelonese proudly refer to as the Muntanya de Montjuïc and to complete the laying out of avenues and promenades envisaged in the 1859 Cerdá Plan or one of several subsequent urban plans.

  
  
  In 1992 it was the celebration of the summer Olympic Games that was to provide the impetus to complete a process of urban renewal that, thanks to Spain's newly restored democracy, had been initiated before the city's Olympic nomination. This time the urban reforms were more ambitious. In addition to the different parts of the city directly affected by the celebration of the Games, there were major works of infrastructure (drainage, communications, services) affecting the whole city and, once again, implementation of various projects first posited in the Cerdá Plan that had been awaiting a suitable moment for almost a hundred and fifty years.

  
  
  On these two occasions, architecture inevitably assumed an essential role. The new exhibition pavilions, hotels, sports facilities, temporary residences an so on transformed the urban landscape. On both occasions, the change was not merely temporary, since Barcelona has (or at any rate had, until quite recently) a tendency to make the transitory permanent, not so much for reasons of economy as of signification and symbolism. A considerable number of our present-day public facilities are to be found housed in buildings constructed for the 1929 exhibition that we have managed to conserve. Something similar occurred with the buildings produced for the 1992 Olympic Games.

  
  
  The two clusters of Barcelona architectures that came into being around these great civic occasions include amongst them works of major cultural importance, not only locally but internationally. A prime example would be the German Pavilion for the 1929 Exhibition, designed by Mies van der Rohe, one of the essential achievements of the Modern Movement. (Let us leave history to judge in the fullness of time whether any of the `92 Olympic constructions is worthy of a similar assessment).

  
  
  These two dates thus appeared to us to be sufficiently significant as to mark the beginning and end of a period in Barcelona's architecture; a period that we in turn divided into three parts in an attempt at reflecting the evolution which that architecture -itself the reflection of broader patterns of social change- has experienced for more than seventy years.

  
  
  The first part (1929-1950) deals with the group of works belonging to what is known as Noucentista architecture, a chronological period whose beginning in fact dates from several years earlier, and coincides with the decline of the Modernisme that occupies such a key position in the history of Catalan and particularly of Barcelonese architecture. With regard to the closing date of this sub-period, 1950 -and not 1939, the end of the Civil War- is the year we consider as best representing the irruption of a profoundly innovative change in our architecture.

  
  
  The years 1951 to 1978 (when the new democratic Constitution was established) comprise the second part, embracing a highly diverse series of architectures -ranging from those of Grup R and their contemporaries to those of the very craft-based "Barcelona School" and its offshoots in the seventies- with one common denominator: the simultaneous pursuit of both an opening-up to the outside world and a specific and unique identity within the context of an evidently difficult political situation.

  
  
  The third and last part (1978-2002) opens with the advent of new phenomena produced by the new political situation: an increased sensitivity to the past, the greater number and scale of public initiatives -noting the special impact on the city of the Olympic Games and the incorporation into this public endeavour of architects with a highly cultured approach to the discipline. The edition we are now presenting coincides with the preparation of "Barcelona 2004: A World Forum of Cultures", which also implies important urban changes.

  
  
  Some observations
  Evidently, the term Barcelona architecture should be understood as covering everything constructed in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. We therefore wish to make explicitly clear at this point that in strictly limiting the scope of the present guide, for reasons of space, to the area within the city boundaries, we have been obliged to leave out (or at least not give full attention to) a number of buildings of fundamental importance in the Barcelona architecture of this period.

  
  As for the transport services we indicate as offering the most convenient means of reaching the locations, in addition to the Metro and FF.CC. local rail systems we have considered only daytime bus routes, and then only those with a stop very close to the buildings in question. The bibliography which is appended at the end of the book is a selection which for reasons of space does not include monographic studies of the buildings; however, most of these studies are to be found in the specialist journals and magazines cited, noting those issues which feature material of this kind.

  
  
  Antoni González, Raquel Lacuesta
  Barcelona, 2002