SHIFTING FOCUS
Barcelona’s Mediterranean edge has been dramatically reshaped over the last 30 years. More than just a facelift, the renewal of the waterfront in Barcelona has led to the growth of completely new districts and represents a new focus for urban planning in the city.
Despite the ancient roots of Barcelona, the city’s tourist identity is already tied strongly to its new waterfront. Evidenced in the cartooned maps for sale around the city, half the included architectural representations inevitably reference the redeveloped waterfront and its supporting urban cast. For every landlocked Gothic cathedral or Gaudi building, there is a waterside aquarium or Olympic Village. Barcelona’s identity has become increasingly tied to its coast over the past few decades.
Much of this phenomenon can be explained by the nature of projects that have gone up near Barcelona’s coast in recent history. They have been granted a grand scale and have often come from iconic designers (Gehry’s fish, Herzog deMeuron’s triangular forum building, and Zaha’s soon-to-be spiral tower for instance). Barcelona’s recent strategy has been to use large, high-profile gatherings as opportunities to spur such prominent projects with a focus on the water. This has allowed the city to undertake bold transformations of its coast in a holistic fashion.
OLYMPIC KICKSTART
Barcelona used the acquisition of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games to catalyze major urban renewal along its main waterfront areas. An event of this magnitude necessitates venues of great scale and the infrastructure to support them. Barcelona capitalized on this opportunity to rethink neglected ports and gentrify ignored neighborhoods.
The bulk of the venues used for athletic competition were built atop Montjuic, a prominent hill just southwest of the city center. To the northeast, on the opposite side of central Barcelona and along the coast, the Olympic Village and Port were constructed. Billions in public and private money was poured into the area to ready housing, restaurants, nightclubs, and leisure spaces for the upcoming games. The adjoining Barceloneta area was also renewed as part of the effort. The entire district was given new life to prepare for a major influx of crowds.
Barcelona’s strategy was to inject public funds into this regeneration effort and convince private investors to follow. Using the Olympics as a carrot, the city was able to pull in the needed money and interest. Projects got off the ground and the area was ready for the games.
In addition to the immediate impact on tourism of such an event, Barcelona greatly boosted its image in the process of hosting the games. As with any Olympics, the city was put on display to the world. Barcelona already had an alluring foundation of history, architecture, culture, and climate. However, revitalizing key areas of the city and modernizing its infrastructure allowed Barcelona’s strengths to come into clear focus (with the Olympic Games as a grand marketing instrument).
Critically, the city now saw itself as a major tourist destination and more and more attention was spent in strengthening this image. Only a year later, 1993 marked the creation of Turimse de Barcelona, a consortium dedicated to bolstering the tourist sector of the city. The spike in international visitors seen during 1992 turned out to be lasting. Barcelona has remained a significant tourist destination (it’s estimated that Barcelona is the fourth most visited city in Europe).
CONCOCTING A REPEAT PERFORMANCE
After the success of the 1992 Olympics in getting urban renewal kickstarted, it became clear to Barcelona that hosting a mega-event is an ideal opportunity to make positive change to its urban landscape. The city, of course, also hoped for another spectacular boost to tourism. Planners realized the impact that the Olympics had (in terms of physical renewal, reputation, and tourist dollars) and wanted to keep the ball rolling. This thinking led to the creation of the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures.
The Forum was to be an event of a scale akin to the Olympics. A multitude of conventions, performances, exhibitions, and even circus shows were planned with an impressive list of participants. The majority of these events, however, would not take advantage of the spaces formed through the process of preparing for the Olympics only a decade before. They would need their own new venues, requiring urban upheaval of a fresh area of Barcelona’s waterfront. Vast plazas, parks, auditoriums, and convention centers were constructed along the water, just northeast of the Olympic Village.
AFTER THE PARTY
The greatest difference between the efforts of urban renewal for the 1992 Olympics and those of the 2004 Forum of Cultures is evident in how the resulting spaces are used today. Twenty years later, the coastline adjacent to the Olympic Village is a popular destination, even in the winter. Meanwhile, the seaside parks and plazas of the forum district sit empty.
// FORUM PLAZAS TODAY
The two areas are both major public spaces of grand scale along the coast, but offer visitors very different experiences. The Olympic Village area has the advantage of providing programs that people use everyday: bars, restaurants, clubs, and (perhaps most importantly) the beach. People can be found making use of the public spaces at any time of day (or year). The beachside promenade from Barceloneta to the Olympic Port is an attractive place to spend leisure time. The same cannot be said if you continue north. Although the beaches continue far further up the coast (connecting to the forum area), interest steadily drops off. The large scale programs in the area have no alternate use. Herzog de Meuron’s Forum Building, for example, currently sits in disrepair: empty, dusty, and damaged.
// LOCKS ON THE FORUM BUILDING
// BARCELONETA (LEFT) TO SCALE WITH FORUM (RIGHT)
// BARCELONETA (LEFT) TO SCALE WITH FORUM (RIGHT)
The coastal area built up around the forum district offers few amenities to pedestrians. What was left after the 2004 events are sprawling empty spaces of a scale useless for much else than future large events. The result, unsurprisingly, is a wasteland of plazas. Worse yet, the unpopularity of these plazas spreads to the parks and beaches that flank them (to the point where one feels unsafe in them). The built environment here is clearly highly designed, with dynamic forms and artistically undulating hardscapes, but lacks the urban design to make it successful outside of a once-in-a-while planned event. Barcelona’s forum area seems to suffer from the same disease as Boston’s City Hall plaza.
// EMPTY PARK AT THE FORUM
// ANOTHER EMPTY PARK (WITH THE OVERWHELMING SMELL OF DIAPERS)
During the Winter, the Forum plazas are colder and less friendly than the summit of the Everest. In Summer time, the plazas are hotter than the Sahara and they are as deserted as that space.
Sadly, there are no plans to renew the Forum plazas by now. But if the Major planted a giant redwood forest in front of the thing, it might just pass for 'acceptable.'
Josep
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