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Criticalista
occasional random thoughts about architecture and the built environment
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The Pointlessness of The Line
The Line, that gigastructure for Saudi Arabia that has recently been reduced to only a tiny fraction of its initially planned length of 170 km, has received a great deal of criticism since its announcement; most of it deserved. Nevertheless, this project does (did?) have two laudable goals: to reduce land consumption, and to build a car-free city, the two of which are essentially the same thing.…
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Everyday Camouflage in Suburbia
[Originally published in Bauwelt 9.2024]
The suburban single-family house has long been promoted as the ideal residential building type; as something to aspire toward. But since the 1980s and the rise of conspicuous consumption, this kind of house has become bloated in size and price, placing it beyond the economic reach of the young while increasingly isolating its elderly inhabitants within a…
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Form Follows Footwear
[Originally published in the April 2024 Mediterranean issue of The Architectural Review]
Plaza Gomila, a small urban square in Palma on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, was the epicentre of the city’s glamorous nightlife in the 1970s, but fell into urban decline in the 1990s. At the heart of El Terreno, a neighbourhood rising uphill from Palma’s harbour below a majestic castle, Plaza Gomila…
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Failing the Test of Time
The famed Sant Antoni Library by RCR Arquitectes, Catalonia’s only Pritzker Prize-winner, has been undergoing a complete renovation since September 2023 — only 16 years after opening its doors in 2007. That’s very little time. Even the average McDonald’s fast food restaurant on an Los Angeles strip is expected to last longer than that.
The celebrated library is currently shut down for almost…
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Postcard from Barcelona
[Last December, Bauwelt magazine asked all of their correspondents to send them a postcard from their hometown along with a new year’s greeting addressing a current issue there. A somewhat longer, more in-depth article to accompany images of the postcard was also commissioned]
Happy new year from El Raval, Barcelona; Europe’s most densely populated neighborhood if unofficial population is…
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A Highly Contested Urban Space in Barcelona
It’s finally happening. A commercial thoroughfare in my neighborhood that is much too narrow, traffic-laden, and overcrowded with shoppers is finally in the process of getting pedestrianized, thanks to pressure from local residents, myself included. With sidewalks that are barely 1m wide and a narrow, single-lane roadway that is constantly occupied by cars, trucks, and motorcycles moving at a…
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MVRDV Makes a Difference
Photo by Jannes Linders courtesy MVRDV + GRAS
[Originally published in DETAIL Magazine 5.2023]
Project Gomila is a micro-urban reconstruction initiative by the owners of the Spanish global footwear brand Camper. When completed, it will provide 60 affordable housing units within seven highly differentiated mixed-use buildings in Palma de Mallorca’s eclectic but downtrodden El Terreno…
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La comida es un medio para hablar de espacios e infraestructuras
Photo: Pedro Pegenaute
[Originalmente publicado en Bauwelt 11.2023]
Bajo el título FOODSCAPES, el pabellón español presenta un examen del contexto agroarquitectónico y analiza los pasos necesarios para poner comida en el plato. Entrevista a Eduardo Castillo-Vinuesa, quien co-comisarió el pabellón con Manuel Ocaña.
¿En qué consiste FOODSCAPES — estáis cultivando hortalizas en el pabellón de…
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Post-Olympic Transformation
[Originally published in Heide Wessely and Sandra Hofmeister, editors: Barcelona: Urban Architecture and Community Since 2010. Munich: Detail Editions, 2023]
Barcelona has a remarkable history of staging global events. The 1888 and 1929 World’s Fairs, the 1992 Olympic Games, and the 2004 Forum of Cultures have not only brought the city international renown but have also served as pretexts to…
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Life in a Gated Community
When my parents retired around 20 years ago, they decided to move to Seville, my father’s hometown. Since they were accustomed to living in suburbia in Canada, they decided to resettle outside of Seville in an urbanización, a North American-style suburban community, where they found an untypically small house with small garden perfect for empty-nesters. Unlike North America, where most of the…
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Gaudí, Ecologist
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Grassroots Gentrification?
A few years ago, dozens of residents of a street in Barcelona’s El Raval neighborhood started hanging potted plants from their building facades, radically changing the street’s appearance for the better. It was not part of any official policy, but rather a spontaneous “grassroots” initiative that has since expanded to other streets. Flower pots, mostly containing spider plants, are held up by…
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Less Glass
In 1832, as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lay on his deathbed, he famously uttered the words “Mehr Licht” (more light). This oft-cited expression has been generally interpreted to mean “more Enlightenment,” owing in no small part to the widely held association of light with modernity. But this could be an overinterpretation. The full sentence he spoke was: “Macht doch den zweiten Fensterladen auf,…
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Community Integration
[Originally published in Bauwelt 14.2022]
With a current average life expectancy of almost 84 years, Spain’s is one of the longest in the world; a significant improvement from the late 19th century when the average Spaniard could not expect to live much beyond age 30. The explanation behind this great leap forward lies in an enviable public health care system that is a product of Spain’s…
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#adaptive re-use#Chamberí#day center for elderly persons#Madrid#Mariluz Sánchez Moral & Padilla Nicás Arquitectos
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Save Barcelona's Plaça dels Àngels from MACBA contemporary art museum's expansion
Please consider signing this petition.
Barcelona’s Plaça dels Àngels square is under threat. City Council recently removed a portion of the square’s protective zona verda (“green zone”) urban zoning designation to accommodate the future expansion plans of the MACBA Museum of Contemporary Art, which already occupies three distinct buildings on that square. If the planned expansion goes ahead, 908…
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The Metaphysics of Zoning
Welcome to one of Barcelona’s “newest” green zones. Barely a year old, it’s located one block off Las Ramblas, the old city’s main tourist drag, in the neighborhood of El Raval. It’s named Plaça del Bonsuccés.
Now, you might be thinking to yourselves: this sure doesn’t look very new. Those trees are way too mature for a newly created public space. It’s probably been like that for decades, or…
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Trees in the Air
Site of green wall before construction.
Construction of green wall (image courtesy Twitter @arqcritic)
Green wall with suspended trees facing a treeless plaza.
Steel tree planter awaiting simulated rock covering
What is the point of suspending trees in the air? They grow much better on the ground, where they also happen to be much more useful for providing humans and animals with shade. But…
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