Densifying La Barceloneta

densifying La Barceloneta

Peadar McGrath Architect

Seafront Master Plan Tabula rasa vs. Preservation The fishing quarter of La Barceloneta sits in a strategic position between the city and the sea, squeezed between a string of beaches to the east and the port and city’s marina to the west. The existing neighbourhood is plagued by problems: it is insalubrious; there is an overwhelming lack of accessibility due to the absence of elevators in all blocks; it does not acknowledge the nearby presence of the beach; there is a general deficit of services, including parking spaces for cars; and it has virtually become an island due to the infrastructures that separate it from the rest of the city.

Le Corbusier’s Macià Plan (1934) tried to address these issues using a tabula rasa approach and a healthy dose of modernist optimism: the existing blocks were to be demolished and the liberated terrain would be occupied by an array of civic buildings and a network of open spaces exploiting the proximity of the sea. The toll for such a hygienist improvement is obvious: the residents would be relocated elsewhere in the city and the historic fishing quarter of La Barceloneta would forever disappear. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 thwarted its implementation.

Location Barcelona, Spain Architect Peadar McGrath Brief Seafront Master Plan Gross External Area 120,000 m2 Site Area 308,000 m2 Date 2010

However the existing neighbourhood also has some positive aspects and we should bear these in mind when we consider any intervention in this part of the city.

The slender housing blocks, with their blind gable ends facing the beach, have become an unmistakable icon that citizens identify with the fishing quarter. The labyrinthine quality of its network of streets, punctuated by surprising open spaces such as the piazzeta facing the church of St Miquel, generates an environment that exploits the potential for urban drama. The mixture of uses has created a neighbourhood that exudes urban intensity, it has an undeniable charm that has already attracted the attention of tourists and it will surely undergo a process of gentrification soon. The historical sheds of the Somorrostro slum, the typological diversity of the linear residential blocks, Rebecca Horn’s Wounded shooting star sculpture...

All these elements bear the indelible mark of the neighbourhood’s essence: an underlying tension between modules and formal anarchy.

Beach and Skyline The scattering of vertical landmarks throughout the city is used by pedestrians to orient themselves. We associate certain icons with particular geographical locations: Foster’s telecommunications tower is the Collserola mountain range, Jean Nouvel’s Agbar tower is Plaza Glòries and SOM’s Mapfre towers are the Olympic marina. But, as anyone who has ever visited Barcelona will corroborate, an inevitable question springs to mind when we reach the end of the Ramblas: Where is the beach? The city has traditionally turned its back on its beach. Since its recent completion, Bofill’s W Hotel with its sail-shaped facade pinpoints the location of the sea, but the psychological effect it has on the pedestrian is misleading and disheartening: it suggests that the beach is at the back of beyond. The beach has never been fully exploited as the city’s facade, as an open space of leisure connected to the rest of the city.

Overall approach We propose to carry out a strategy of selective elimination: to demolish the expendable residential blocks, i.e. the blocks whose disappearance will not alter irrevocably the identity of the quarter. Thus, all unique blocks are to be preserved, as will those blocks that define open spaces, and the ones that front both the marina and beach promenades. The neighbourhood’s interface with the beach will be solved with a subtle intervention in which the staggered comb shaped plan and the slenderness of the blocks will be preserved whilst a new site plan will increase density, expanding the clear distance between blocks and will brings the promenade into the heart of the fishing quarter. The resulting floor area will increase the neighbourhood’s current floor area but it will be spread over a smaller footprint. This will liberate large spaces at ground floor level bringing air and light into the quarter whilst also keeping the existing number of housing units.

Site Strategy The goal is to improve the living conditions of the quarter and enhance its link to the beach, without relocating any of its residents and without altering its unique character.

Most existing streets will become pedestrian zones and three new strategically located underground carparks will be built. In contrast to the MaciĂ Plan, which dramatically lowered the built mass, density will be increased.

The terrain liberated after the demolition of the selected blocks will be colonised with a number of linear blocks with a depth of 15 metres and blind gable ends. New blocks will be arranged in accordance with the preexisting grid, generating a variety of open spaces to enable a sequence of contracted and dilated voids. The network of open spaces is conceived as an extension of the beach promenade. The blocks that front the marina will therefore become a simple curtain which when crossed will allow the pedestrian to finally enter into contact with the beach. Blocks which are set perpendicular to this curtain will all be raised from ground level in order to ensure a constant view of the beach, all other blocks are to have retail space at ground floor level. Their height will range from 5 storeys in the vicinity of the church to 20 at the beachfront.

Open Spaces The current deficit of open spaces will be solved by creating several pedestrian squares that will be added to the existing piazzas to create a network of spaces that blends with

the beach. Within this network of open spaces, two complementary piazzas stand out due to their size and position. Piazza A is an elongated rectangle in plan, a directional space with proportions that echo Zaragoza’s Plaza del Pilar. It is conceived as a hard standing area, very few elements of street furniture and no trees at all that could obstruct the one-point perspective view of the beach. Piazza B, on the other hand, is a static space the proportions of which resemble Madrid’s Plaza Mayor. A sand pit flanked by palm trees offers a lush setting, a fragment of the beach that is only meters away.

Icon The height of the residential blocks increases gradually as they draw closer to the beachfront, reaching a maximum height of 80 metres. Thus an icon emerges from the fishing quarter’s skyline, a vertical landmark that will be spotted from afar and will guide pedestrians in their search for Barcelona’s elusive beach. This icon evokes the identity of the neighbourhood with its formal language: a variegated facade formed by the stacking of identical units. The resulting image is a colourful and informal ensemble that will be associated with the milieu of the beach, like a catchy pop song immediately identifiable as the background music to the summertime.

mcgrath@coac.net