Escape Plan
ESCAPE PLAN – Girona SIGRID EHRMANN & MARTÍ FRANCH
Once considered a quiet medieval Catalan town at the foot of the Pyrenees, Girona’s much-acclaimed culinary scene, scenic landscapes and popularity as a film location have turned it into a mecca for food lovers, cyclists and Game of Thrones enthusiasts. Its close proximity to Barcelona has also led to a considerable population growth, currently at around 100,000 inhabitants. These phenomena have not only put pressure on the city’s housing market, but also its parks and urban spaces. Yet Girona – the City of Four Rivers – has recovered and restored many neglected areas over the past decades.
1
Barri Vell 41.985607, 2.826943
http://www.lebistrot.cat Along Girona Shores: ‘Cul del Món’ https://www.elculdelmon.com
B&B Bells Oficis in las Ramblas https://www.elculdelmon.com
Um Pah Pah – Novembre (Bordell, 1994) https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=PBeWyu6IUOs
SIGRID EHRMANN is a freelance translator and content creator based in Barcelona. A trained landscape architect, her areas of specialisation include architecture, urbanism and environment. MARTÍ FRANCH is a landscape architect and
agricultural engineer. He holds a Doctor of Design Honoris Causa by the University of Greenwich. In 1999 he founded the award-winning landscape architecture studio EMF Paisatge in Girona.
112
topos ISSUE 110
buildings and public spaces. The continuous and repetitive use of materials and colour shades ensured the creation of an encompassing architectural appearance throughout the Barri Vell. The reurbanisation of the longitudinal pedestrian axis of Ciutadans, Cort Reial, Ballesteries, and Calderes Streets, undertaken by amm arquitectes, illustrates this simple, yet sophisticated design vocabulary. A walk on top of the city walls, whose foundations can be traced back to the 1st century, offers a new perspective over the city and surrounding landscape. The medieval parts of the wall were restored by architects Bosch, Tarrús i Vives (1983 –1986) to create a public walkway.
2
Parc de la Devesa 41.986271, 2.811675 Across the River Onyar with its famous bridges and houses lies the Parc de la Devesa, Catalonia’s largest urban park and the main lung of the city. Originally a forest plantation, 2,500 hybrids of Oriental and Western plane tree species, mostly planted in 1850, are arranged in long rows across the park’s 40 hectares. The tight spacing between trees caused them to shoot upward in a straight line – today, most of them reach a height of around 50-55 metres. In the 1960s the park became largely abandoned, and the health of trees suffered until a community initiative fought to save the park and re-establish it as a civic space. Today, as a result of Girona’s urban growth, the park is no longer at the periphery of town, but fully integrated into the urban fabric. Citizens and tourists alike escape to this unique space, a green oasis whose majestic plane trees create an ethereal atmosphere.
Map: Open Street Map
Old centre (with terrace) ‘le Bistrot’
No trip to Girona would be complete without a stroll through the old quarter (Barri Vell) past the cathedral with its monumental stairs, the Jewish quarter and the city’s Arab baths, both dating back to the 12th century. Since the 1980s, the entire streetscape of the historic centre was refurbished by various local architects, following the criteria outlined in the Pla Especial del Barri Vell from 1983. The democratic municipal government initiated the recovery of the degraded city centre after the end of Franco’s dictatorship based on this urban design framework. This pioneering document set out the use of a specific colour chart and limited local materials for the restoration of