SITE

The specific site where we are going to work on will be a space-limit, a boundary where different traces meet or crash: the Eixample mesh, Meridiana Avenue and the still running railway coming from old Estació de França (France Station).

Being in the middle of the regular grid, this area has its own specificity. The grid is cut diagonally by a wide boulevard, Meridiana Avenue. A train track, with its own first circular, then diagonal geometry, cuts through several blocks, affecting their shape. A difference in ground level, something not present elsewhere in the Eixample with its regular up-sloping topography, opens an even sharper wound.

All these traces have to do with a change in the soil: we are on the border between solid ground and the Besòs riverbed. Actually the river is much further to the east, but geologically its influence reaches as far as here.

These irregularities in what is otherwise such a repetitive grid have kept the area partially free of buildings. In the last years on the west side of Meridiana Ave. two important public buildings have been built: the new Auditorium and the Catalan National Theatre. Both seem a bit lost, depending more on the orthogonal grid roads and failing to generate meaningful public space where they meet the avenue. On the east side the train first cuts through the above-mentioned buildings then through several lots that still stand free. More to the north, Meridiana Ave. meets two of Barcelona’s main axes, where we discover new building activity in front of a huge roundabout that only works as a traffic node.

Altogether the site is asking for a coherent space definition.

The workshop’s aim is to reflect on and develop one or several proposals. These proposals should take into account the existing situation with its particularities within the Eixample grid and should be able to give a proper identity to this part of the city.

The proposals will combine urban rehabilitation, public spaces and new construction, and will be based upon a mixed-use programme following 22@ as a model.