AH/US 330 - Architecture and Landscape in Barcelona

This course explores urban, architecture and landscape projects in modern Barcelona from the 1850´s to the present day. The class is structured in two parts: the first offers a historical survey that explores architecture projects in relation to urban developments from the industrial era up to the so-called Barcelona Model and the Olympic period. The second part of the course presents a series of case studies of projects within contemporary post-Olympic Barcelona. These projects help to illuminate current debates about architecture, urbanism and landscape in the city, in the national context as well as opening up larger issues and frames of reference that are relevant to contemporary urban and architectural theory in general. The choice of case studies and readings has been designed to make comparisons between Barcelona and other cities and to highlight the tension between the forces of globalization and local culture and their ongoing evolution and negotiation. Some of the topics which will be addressed are: Urban waterfront transformation as a marker of globalization; the question of tangible and intangible heritage thru the regeneration of the historic center and the management of the market system; the creation of memory sites following the Law of Historic Memory; the transformation of former industrial spaces; the use of culture as a regenerative urban catalyst; participatory urbanism in the wake of the Spanish crisis and finally the problem of overtourism. We will discuss the globalizing forces affecting contemporary Barcelona and other cities, causing the creation of common landscapes as well as greater awareness of local identity, heritage, the environment and sustainability.