The ideation of Barcelona’s territory through its representation

Authors

  • Mar Santamaria-Varas Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) , Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) , Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC)
  • Pablo Martinez-Diez Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia image/svg+xml

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5821/ace.11.32.4838

Keywords:

cartography, history, Big data, urbanism

Abstract

This paper aims to describe what tools have been decisive so far in the urban planning of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area with the ultimate goal of understanding the current state of the art and anticipate future transformations. Unlike other papers describing the history of Barcelona (Solà-Morales, 2008 and Espuche and Watchkeeping, 1986) or drawing conclusions about the so-called "Barcelona model" (Montaner, Alvarez and Muxí, 2012), this article is based on the hypothesis that representation tools condition the way we see the world and so the resulting project, as Corner states (1999). By means of analysis and comparison of various cartographies, this paper reviews some moments in the history of Barcelona Metropolitan Area when urban planning has been deeply influenced by design tools, from traditional surveys to Big Data.

Author Biographies

  • Mar Santamaria-Varas, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC)
    Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DUOT) School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB)
  • Pablo Martinez-Diez, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
    Architect

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Published

2016-11-02

Issue

Section

Special section