BARCELONA URBAN EVENT part 2

BAU – BARCELONA ACONTECIMIENTO URBANO
(BARCELONA URBAN EVENT)

part 2

Public versus Private: The Sphere of the Possible

Cities have traditionally been divided into these two distinct categories, public space versus private space, with no intermediate areas. Yet if a city is able to knock down this mental (and often physical) barrier, its urban mass will be much more receptive, osmotic and permeable.

This can be done by broadening the scope of possibility between clear-cut public and private space, providing the city with a whole range of new intermediate areas. This does not mean mixing public and private, merely creating a buffer between the two, able to generate an active transition between what takes place on a large scale and what is individual. To a certain extent what is called for is a redefinition of the initial dichotomy by creating spaces that are semi-public, others semi-private, and spaces of approximation –– in short, enhancing the range of possible relations between citizens and their immediate environment. Although this is not a new idea perhaps it hadn’t been clearly expressed until now. In the refurbished inner courtyards of the blocks in the Eixample district designed by Cerdà, open public use of space co-exists with the private appropriation of these areas by adjacent buildings. These hybrid spaces are officially public, yet in practice they are enjoyed by local neighbours. Designing such spaces increases the possibilities for interaction between the city and its citizens. What the tourist may miss will be enjoyed by the city-dweller, the connoisseur of the town, district or street in question. The idea is to create an urban fabric on a scale smaller than that of great streets, squares and buildings; channelling public space towards the private spheres of homes and offices; designing not specific corners, twists and turns, but rather areas in which citizens can voluntarily disappear, sheltered from cars and protected from public gazes. The reinvention of the street, of front and back, of what is exposed and what remains secluded, lies precisely in this transitional realm between public and private, mass and individuality. Such polyhedral cities, full of delicate ramifications, encompass manifold interpretations and recuperate the Situationist idea of drift (dérive) or détournement.


Repetition versus Variation: The System

When we speak of a certain ‘model’ of city we usually resort to generalisations that are unable to capture the necessary nuances of living cities. The model refers to a masterly solution, almost an ideological vision of a solution, an idea that is usually greatly impoverished when the conditions in which it is applied are not those best suited to the model’s co-ordinates.

To model complexity is an extremely difficult task when it comes to contemporary cities. Variables are affected by the constant fluctuation of determinants, leading to models that are either too general (and therefore unable to assume the nitty-gritty of their actual application), or too specific with regard to local detail (and therefore not applicable in other suppositions). To counteract the dysfunctions of a given model we shall adopt the idea of the system.

The city considered as a system is understood as an unfolding of platforms intended to develop simultaneous situations, multiple actions and experiences. The variables of such systems must be clearly established, in particular the scope for transformation they are able to assume. Systems are more flexible than models; they have a wider range of application in changing environments and are more liable to provoke appropriate responses. A certain behavioural logic, certain guidelines and codes of reaction to change underlie all systems, guaranteeing adaptive transformations and pertinent solutions to varying demands.

The city appears a system of systems, all interconnected, interwoven and interdependent, systems covering different areas of the city superimposed on other systems of greater scope. Such systems are not conditioned by aesthetic precautions such as variations or repetitions to taste. Systems have a self-programmed logic that depends on the external forces to which they are subjected; in fact, systems are mutable and their forms are directly related to their own pre-existing conditions. Form, therefore, is not an essential feature, a trait neither definitive nor definitional of the system’s functionality. Form does not exist inasmuch as it is not established a priori; it exists as a final result of an urban process of calculation. The issue is not of course merely to translate the resultants of density, buildability, usage, etc., into spatial factors, but to work out the degree of density of the event in programmatic-spatial terms, the definition of all sorts of variables (immigration, mobility, scheduled uses, interaction, dependence, independence and interdependence, etc.), using algorithms that will express the extreme yet necessary complexity of cities.


In Favour of a Liveable City

As opposed to the inhumane breaking up of the generic city and the romantic tyranny of the recognisable city, with its nostalgic codes of identity and associations with totality, we propose a polyhedral city –– a city of multiple gazes, a macro-regional, macro-architectural, macro-territorial and micro-urban city. A city of encounters, of voluntary drifts and on-demand references; a city of the hustle and bustle of shopping and of our first furtive kiss; a city of urban event culture and private domestic culture; a city interconnected with the world and intra-connected with our most intimate imaginary. We propose a city of multiple identities rather than official identity; a city of artificial domesticity and urban naturalness; a city that reacts to indifference, to all that is generic, to shallow standardisation. We propose a city that welcomes the tension of contradictions, of exchange and responsibility. A city both functional and emotional; a city of experience and invention; a city that is increasingly POLIS and decreasingly MEGA. A city of value and countervalue, of tradition and innovation, of narrative and poetry, of confluence and dispersal. A city that offers a choice, a city that adapts; a city of public space charged with capacities and possibilities; a city that must be re-visited from without and re-envisaged from within. A complex city with coincidental limits; a city not of perplexity but of paradox. In short, we propose a city mirrored on the men and women who inhabit it, a city to live in… a Liveable City.