City branding | Concepting processesArchitecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona] by Arturo Varela

Acknowledgements

I want to thank to professors: Andrea Haase, Alfred Jacoby and especially to Neil Leach for all their support and knowledge. I also want to thank to my good friends Eduardo, Ling, Tobi, Deepti, Jasmina, Christoph, Arnold, Rodrigo, Bee, Eli, Iku, Peik Li, Zosia & Dominik, Annia, Gabriel, Camiel, Krassi, Fabiano, Guima, Scott, Setu, Sumana, Mithun, Vaskor, Slovodan, Karol, Satish, Keiu, Hang, Bersant, Rhong, Nedal and Sara for all their support and friendship during this time in Germany.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

To my beloved wife Veronica Cattivelli I wish to extend all my gratitude for all her support and love, I am forever grateful; and for my parents Susana Neira and Arturo Varela, to whom I owe everything.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Abstract

The idea of this master thesis is to achieve a study into the city branding and concepting phenomena and the potential of architecture for being an operational branding tool to develop and transform the city. The purpose is to review and confront the traditional and commercial top down approach to city branding with the newest concepting strategies of the image of the city, with a bottom up approach. The study covers the context where this processes are emerging, the particular definitions and tools borrowed from marketing spheres and city branding. It follows analysing the case of Barcelona, and how it has used architecture to brand itself, including an appendix with interviews made with key thinkers on the topic, covering local authorities and planners to professionals from different disciplines. The challenge will be to determine whether branding or concepting the city can be a point of departure for an architect or urban planner.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Content 1. Introduction ................................................................................................6 2. Branding & Concepting ..............................................................................10 2.1 Branding commercial products .....................................................................12 Functionality ............................................................................................14 Added value .............................................................................................14 3. Branding of Cities ......................................................................................16 3.1 Why need cities to be branded? ...................................................................16 A brand for the competitive city ..................................................................17 Sustainability and competitiveness ..............................................................19 3.2 Methodology .............................................................................................21 Stages in the brand developing process .......................................................21 3.3 Operative tools ..........................................................................................22 Architecture and urban space .....................................................................22 3.4 Alternatives to brand legibility......................................................................24 Image buildings or building images .............................................................24 4. The case of Barcelona ................................................................................26 4.1 Why choosing the case of Barcelona? ............................................................26 4.2 The operative tools for branding...................................................................33 Architecture and Urban Space.....................................................................33 Culture, architecture and the generation of a concept.....................................35 The branding strategies that affected Barcelona: ...........................................37 4.3 The branding events...................................................................................42 “Barcelona posa’t guapa” campaign 1986 – 1999 ..........................................43 The 1992 Olympics Games .........................................................................47 Forum 2004 – Diagonal Mar .......................................................................53 4.4 The fore coming challenges .........................................................................57 5. Conclusion .................................................................................................62 6. Appendix: Interviews ................................................................................65 Bibliography ..................................................................................................71

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

1. Introduction When we think of a city, even a small one, we think of an image. Cities are experienced in terms of images. Visitors bathe in images before going anywhere – scrutinizing guidebooks, websites, business brochures, videos, airline magazines, friends’ snapshots, and so on – then project these images onto the place, trying to match what they see to what expected to see. Moreover, what is seen is completely shaped by what is expected. Physical form is at best a prop for launching or modulating streams of images.1 We do not go to cities. Cities come to us, stream towards us. To occupy a city today is to surf in a dense array of overlapping media streams. The limit of the city is not the limit of some physical terrain but the limit of its packaging. Cities compete with each other, packaging themselves like any other product, and it is in this self-promotion that the territorial limits of urban space are drawn. Architecture is always linked to questions of visual and cultural identity. Architecture is an essential element in the spatial language of forms and is deeply embedded within the complex fields of urban and cultural discourses. However, cultural theorists have convincingly maintained, “culture is constituted not by a system of objects alone, but by a discourse that imbues these objects with meaning. Culture identity therefore, emerges as a complex field of operations that engages with – but is not defined by - cultural artefacts such as architecture.”2 Global market forces driving the process in which centres of urban activity compete to become, or continue to be, main actors in the interlinked economy. Interest in cities as brands is growing as territorial competition increases. City branding is an emerging agent for urban socio-economic development, a strategy that provides cities with an image, a cultural significance, and a source of economic value, and constitutes an instrument that can agilely convey a city’s strengths.

1 2

Mark Wigley, Resisting the City, 103, Transurbanism, V2_Publishing/NAI Publishers, Rotterdam, 2002 Neil Leach, “Belonging” in AA Files, 76

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 1: New European Union flag proposal designed by Rem Koolhaas3

It is not surprising then to see a significant number of cities, both in the developing world and from mature economies, involved in processes to create a new brand or reinvent their existing one. Architectural exotica, seen in Bilbao, Las Vegas, or in 42nd Street in Manhattan, are only the extreme examples of the lengths to which cities must now go in order to differentiate themselves in this world of sameness.

Figure 2: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao - Paris Hotel in Las Vegas - Times Square skyline

Two main issues converge in the process cities use the brand to present themselves, on one hand as a vehicle to broadcast urban identity and on the other as an instrument to increase competitive capacity. Exploring their synergies, we can find an opportunity for sustainable development

The logo - designed in response to a request by European Commission president Romano Prodi to find ways of rebranding the EU - represents Europe's "diversity and unity”, according to Mr Koolhaas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1974721.stm

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

This thesis first describes a possible methodological approach in city branding, and, second, narrates the experience of Barcelona in developing its brand. The main motivation for choosing this topic is to understand the city branding phenomena and its potentials for revitalizing the cities. There is a necessity of shifting paradigms about city planning and it is impossible to answer these questions from a single discipline but if we start making us aware of this fact, it will be easier to provide better and more accurate answers in each of our fields. A “stigmatized” theme such as branding could be transformed in to an operational implement in order to comprehend and transform the city.

A redefinition of this concept

can lead us to the point that the city, comes to a complex phenomenon, of mental, emotional, physical and economic processes. City Branding, or the planed image or brand of a city, now forms a challenge for architects and urban planers. The challenge itself would be whether branding could be a legitimate and self-evident point of departure for an architect or urban designer. The idea is to explore cities as brands. Brands evolve, and cities that survive have managed to evolve. Strategists and planners are working at a feverish pace to re-brand cities or to brand a city that never had a strong brand in order to create a community where people will want to live.4 Citizens are not the only targets interpellated in the process of resignifying the city. In accordance with the logic of the tourist industry5, the entire city turns into lucrative, luxury, fun commodity that can be rapidly consumed by the tourist, a leisure space commodified repeatedly in the purchase of a plane ticket, a guide book, the booking of a hotel room or restaurant table. In each and every one of these activities, the hypothetical tourist “buys” the city and constructs a private imaginary of it, most previously manufactured for them by multiple local and global practices and interests.

Starting to think from the common person point of view of what is the idea of a good city and we may find want they want the city should have. It should offer attractive employment, not be unduly expensive in relation to wages, provide good and affordable housing, have reasonable public transportation, good schools and recreational/cultural attractions, have a reasonable climate. 5 According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the 1990s saw international tourism arrivals growing at an average rate of 4.3 percent a year. In 2000, the rate was 7.4 percent. That year travel and tourism generated directly and indirectly 11.7 percent of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and nearly 200 million jobs. By 2020, the number of international travellers is forecast to surge to 1.6 billion, with revenue from tourism grossing more than US$2 trillion.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Even in the case of those activities not involving an immediate act of consumption, as recommended tourist routes, the semantics of space have been constructed for the foreign viewer, and this construction has necessitated a previous political and economic intervention. That means in the form of the restoration, face lifting and rehabilitation of buildings, the equipment and staffing of venues, the production of targeted bibliographies, etc. Branding of cities has to be very specific about what it wants to sell and to whom, however also demands to be as wide as possible the market is.

Figure 3: Amsterdam campaign promotion inside and outside the City

Figure 4: London Slogan for the Olympic Games 2012

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

2. Branding & Concepting First is necessary to point out some particular meanings in the definition of certain terms that are going to be used throughout this study. On one hand, in marketing, a brand6 is the symbolic embodiment of all the information connected with a product7. A brand typically includes a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images or symbols. It also encompasses the set of expectations associated with a product or service, which typically arise in the minds of people. Therefore branding8 means to impress firmly and fix ineradicably this embodiment. On the other hand, a concept is something formed in the mind, a thought or notion, and following this meaning, concepting9 starts with the promotion or communication of an idea or vision. Then, everything else including the product is established to sustain the original concept. Concept brands such as Nike, Ikea, Benetton, and Virgin have paved the way for a new approach to branding. The way they express themselves may be different, but they do have something in common in the way they were created. They are based on strong consumer insights and imagination. They are about attracting consumers with a story, a philosophy, an attitude, and a way of looking at the world. In addition, here the term image10 has to be defined as a mental picture of something not necessarily real or present and in order to complete the idea we can introduce the term imago11 in order to link this association with intrinsically development, evolution, a process, a strategic deepening of the imago, as an often-idealised picture.

Such people include employees of the brand owner, people involved with distribution, sale or supply of the product or service, and ultimate consumers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branding 7 In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. However it is much more than just a physical object. It is the complete bundle of benefits or satisfactions that buyers perceive they will obtain if they purchase the product. It is the sum of all physical, psychological, symbolic, and service attributes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_(business) 8 Brand is the proprietary visual, emotional, rational, and cultural image associated with a company or a product. The purpose of having people remember the brand name and have positive associations with that brand is to make their product selection easier and enhance the value and satisfaction they get from the product. www.denow.com/6gloss/ 9 Jan Rijkenberg’s Theory on “Concepting” Creating Succesful brand in a communication-oriented era. www.bsur.com 10

Perceptions of the features, tangible and intangible, that characterize a brand. www.wompro.com/catalogue/category22/product4514 In common usage, an image (from Latin imago) or picture is an artifact that reproduces the likeness of some subject—usually a physical object or a person. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image 11 Entomology. The last stage of development of an insect, after the last ecdysis of an incomplete metamorphosis, or after emergence from pupation where the metamorphosis is complete. As this is the only stage which is sexually mature, and has functional wings in winged species, the imago is often referred to as the adult stage, refers to a “developed insect”, this in regard to the other earlier stages of development of an insect such as larva and pupa. Intrinsically is linked with development, evolution or a process, a strategic deepening of the imago. www.wikipedia.com | (psychoanalysis) an idealized image of someone (usually a parent) formed in childhood. www. wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

According to this and as Jacques Lacan argued: …identification 12 is the transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image or imago…. Following this line of thinking the term individualism 13 needs to be presented as a distinguishing feature of the personal nature; singularity, uniqueness - the quality of being one of a kind; distinctiveness, special ness, specialty, peculiarity, specialty - a distinguishing trait.

12 Lacan Jaques , 1977, “The Mirrorstage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience “ in Ecrits: A Selection, New York, Norton, p. 54 13

www.thefreedictionary.com

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

2.1 Branding commercial products The purpose of branding is to achieve the consumer perception in order to deliver a sustainable competitive advantage. 14 Brand properties start with customers. The marketer seeking branding success listens closely to what customers' wants and needs and observes the behaviour of the customer when making purchases.15 Concepting offers a very new approach to brands, their development and communication. It is one of the most important new theories in branding, communications and product development of recent times. Vast majority of companies in any given line of business are using the same marketing and research techniques and the same communication means and tricks. Therefore, the marketing competitive edge is disappearing. Concepting as the name implies, it turns to the development of brands that embody concepts – using the word in a broad and extensive sense. A concept goes beyond the product; indeed, it is independent of the product. A concept is a rubric under which one could find visions, attitudes, convictions, philosophies, mentalities, motivations, areas of interest, world views and indeed whole “worlds”, which the brand elicits. However even if concepts can be of different types and can be broader or narrower, what they will share is the fact that they actually mean something to the consumers; they evoke their sympathy and they even inspire them. The term concepting seems the most appropriate to describe to continuous process _ not a one shot, brand invention exercise, which encompasses a concept’s birth, development and ongoing development, or management. Nike is an outstanding example of such a brand. For the consumer, Nike is not simply a training shoe. It is lot more: it represents an entire mentality – a world of persistence, self-confidence, aspiration, performance. One could view concepting as marketing in “reverse” The process does not begin with the product, actually begins with promotion, that is communication the remaining steps, are employed as tactical tools in a particular sequence.

Levit, Mark. “Branding” Partners & Levit Advertising April 2003

15 Jones, John Philip and Slater, Jan. “What’s in a Name? Advertising and the Concept of Brands.” Second Edition. (M.E. Sharpe, Amonk, New York, 2003) p.5

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

start branding concepting start product

price

place

promotion

Figure 5: Concepting reverse the process. Source: Jan Rijkenberg’s Theory

Concept branding offers companies a completely fresh way of developing brands. Instead of the product proposition, delineated markets and target groups, it looks at brand development in terms of concepts. These concepts actually mean something to the consumer, evoking sympathy and identification with the brand, and improving customer loyalty. Concept brands are the future for those wishing to capture their markets in this increasingly converging age.

Figure 6: Concepting book and theory from Jan Rijkenberg

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Functionality In order for a brand to be strong, it must be functional. Functionally strong and functionally distinctive. The best way of differentiating functionality is to offer a superior product. The motivating benefits are the products functional qualities. As an example, a camera is purchased because functionally it can take photographs, recording memories we want to keep on file digitally or on paper. These functional qualities are generally what cause consumers to buy the product in the first place. In advertising, however, they do not just want motivating benefits; they also want discriminating benefits - which prompt the consumer to buy one brand over another. What is the functionality of buying a Nikon versus a SONY? Not only do we want the camera to take good photos, but also perhaps our purchase decision is based on emotional response, such as status, glamour, or reputation. The first purchase characteristic is functionality the rest is added value. In the case of cities, like brands, they must be functional. A city must function as a destination for employment, industry, housing, public transportation, and recreational attractions. Added value Not all products are brands. Real brands provide not only functional benefits but also non-functional added value. Strong brands must have added value in the mind of the consumer. These added values are normally non-functional. These come from the consumer experience with the brand, what kind of people use the brand, whether or not the brand is believed to be effective, and the appearance of the brand. Some of this is logical, but most of it is not. It is emotional and subconscious. 16 Taking the example of Nike, originally people bought Nike products for their functional properties, but became committed and loyal to the Nike brand due to the combination of functionality and added value.

16 Added value refers to the increase in worth of a product or service as a result of a particular activity. In the context of marketing, the added value is provided by features and benefits over and above those representing the “core product”. www.tutor2u.net/business/marketing/glossary_a.htm MARKETING extra value of company's products: the extra value of its products or services, in terms of usefulness or convenience in relation to competing products, that a company tries to communicate to its potential customers [http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561546143/added_value.html]

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Branding is an image, something that exists in people’s minds. The added value of Nike, among other things, is that the brand represents the best athletes in the world. We believe Nike concept when the brand says to us that when we wear Nike products we form a personal link to the best athletes in the world. While consciously we know we are not Ronaldhino or Tiger Woods, subconsciously we believe we are the best we can be when we ‘just do it’ (as the tagline indicates). The personal connection and simplicity of the brand message adds value and differentiates the Nike brand from that of its competitors. The added value can come from many sources and forms, most of them non-functional, emotional, and not as quantifiable as the functional ones. In order to succeed brands should have the following added values: consumers experience of the product, perception of the brand e.g. the normal associations with it, trust in the product and appearance of it. The physical characteristics it possesses are extremely important. Considering cities, they are now largely defined by location, function, or cultural attainments.

Figure 7: NYC Photographic Installation 2002

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

3. Branding of Cities 3.1 Why need cities to be branded? Since the imperative need to respond to pressures of competitiveness and the value brought by city branding as a tool made a significant number of cities start trying to develop their brands. Devising a city brand requires the combined expertise of at least two disciplines, on one hand from the perspective of managerial and marketing techniques and on the other from the viewpoint of urban development strategies including socioeconomic and spatial planning. At a participatory level the process benefits from a close partnership between leaders, such as governmental and semi-governmental organizations, investment agencies, the business sector, tourism and conference promotion agencies, educational, cultural and heritage institutions, the inhabitants and their civic organizations.

Figure 8: Disneyland and Time square - Anna Klingman’s Book: Beyond Architecture:

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

A brand for the competitive city According to the urban planning approach, the most competitive cities are the ones that obtain the best return from the utilization of their assets. 17 The city branding process, must identify what those resources are and which of them have most potential of providing an outcome that is economically interesting, and compatible with the city’s values and social beliefs and non harmful for its environment in the long term. Additionally, comparative studies can inform the city branding process in order to prioritize resources that are innovative and least easy to replicate. The growing influence of the market in city making is contemporaneous to the reorganisation of public competences in both territorial and functional terms among local, regional, national and supranational levels. Borja and Castells point out the interdependence between cities and the market system 18 .

Cities now develop an

exterior economic policy in fields as diverse as industrial policy, technology transfer, and opening of new markets, tourism promotion or job markets, among others.19 The “privatisation of the state” 20 implies a loss of influence and operational and decision-making autonomy by the public sphere. The benefit of it is an increased effectiveness of public sector in fields like the dissemination of knowledge or the influencing of partners and stakeholders from the private sphere. This leads to a change in the public sector’s role, from being a guarantee for strategic economic segments, to situations in which the public sector serves as a nexus with partners in the private sphere.

17 Deas and Giordano, Locating the Competitive City in England (2002) adopt a two-pronged approach to derive indicators of competitiveness. They look first at the “assets” of the city, which they define in terms of socio-economic indicators. Then they examine various “outcome” variables that provide evidence on how well a city has been performing. 18 “The global city is a network of urban nodes […] an interactive system of variable geometry to which companies and cities must constantly adapt themselves in a flexible way. And the changing relation to this web is what determines, to a great extent, the fate of cities and citizens.” Borja and Castells (1997) 19 Some observers (Jones (1998); Aghion-Howitt (1998) have pointed out that these activities come under the definition of Schumpeterian growth theory, in which, as Aghion (2001) postulates, “growth is primarily driven by a sequence of quality-improving innovations each of which destroys the rents generated by previous innovations”. 20

Sassen (2004) defines this as the trend toward a lesser presence of the state and public organizations in the political organization of societies as

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Neo-liberalism affects not only the state, but also the cities that must pay increasingly greater attention to the evolution of the international context when defining their local economic policies. The city has become an entrepreneurial space by defining itself as an economic, political and cultural entity that actively seeks to develop consumer activities in order to improve its competitive position. Local economic policies by local governments need to manage the following aspects in a strategic and integral manner:

The promotion of the city toward the exterior, by developing a strong and positive image based on an offer of infrastructures and services attracting investors, visitors and solvent users.

Joining efforts with other public administrations and with the private sector.

Internal promotion of the city, with a sense of belonging, developing a collective will to participate and confidence in the place.

Political innovation aimed at generating multiple mechanisms of social cooperation

and

citizen

participation,

stimulating

and

channelling

the

population’s energies, e.g. employment, security, and the maintenance of equipment, services and public spaces. Developing a city brand can become a useful process in linking these aspects through setting a shared vision. City branding offers an integral voice to issues faced by society where public and private agents can be heard. A strong brand can help cities overcome crises reconstructing their future direction and renew beliefs for co-existence. While citizens and visitors increasingly wants choice, diversity, distinguishing features and depth in order to enrich their own individuality and connect emotionally with its environment, what is an offer seems to be heading energically towards monotony and predictability. This means that cities are in danger of losing their power to differentiate themselves and to generate emotions, bonds and involvement. They are becoming impersonal and anonymous. Branding strategies can be therefore explored in order to arrive at cities that have depth, originality and a distinct character and thereby able to grip citizen’s emotion and bind to them.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Sustainability and competitiveness Sustainable development21 carries the idea that social, economic and environmental objectives should be complementary and interdependent in the development process. A balanced integration between urban resources will positively influence the city’s capacity to compete. The economical resources will enable a strong governance system, stabilized market conditions, physical and non-physical infrastructure granting accessibility and mobility, and innovation and technological development. The social and cultural assets are related to access to: housing, education, culture, and health care, inhabitant’s integration in a community, built heritage concern and

the entertainment, shopping, recreation and

sports. The environmental and natural resources include availability of land, quality of the air, provision of water, climate, waste treatment systems and the provision and care of urban flora and fauna.

Figure 9: Park & Water Tratment Plant at the Forum BCN

21 The 1987 Brundtland report defined sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The city brand objectives must support the sustainable model, and at the same time contribute to increase the city’s competitive capacity. As economic objectives, the brand should ensure that the strengths of the city are properly connected to the needs of the marketplace. The cities need to retain their productive structure and increase their competitive capacity by entering, or inventing, a new sector.22 Social cohesion is an important contributor of sustainable urban development. Successful brands focus on existing socio-cultural values, projecting and upgrading a vision for everyone, portraying a place where people want to live and work and motivating public participation. Amongst other brand values, an environmental message can contribute to raise citizens’ awareness

and

understanding

the

urban

ecosystem,

and

thus

promote

environmentally responsible behaviour. Sustainable development requires a way of optimization in land use, reduction of waste levels, management of pollution, improvement of the quality of drinking water and rationalization of its use, integration of green zones into urban areas, design of housing to reduce use of energy, measures to reduce fuel pollution, and reduction of private car traffic whilst improving urban mobility.

Figure 10: Park and Bike Trails at Monjuic BCN

22 For example, Malaysia’s innovative approach in mixing tourism and healthcare thus creating a new industry – medical tourism. www.tourism.gov.my

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

3.2 Methodology Stages in the brand developing process Articulating an urban identity Globalization 23

has

begun

create

international

and,

some

cases,

intercivilisational monoculture that has rendered distinct urban identities on the limit of extinction24. Urban identity is a complex mixture of a city’s spatial configuration and its socio-cultural values and the interaction over time of these spatial and social dimensions. 25 A multidisciplinary perspective is needed in order to understand their depth, originality and distinct character. Cities must be read through an overlay of historical, social, architectural, urbanistic and market research analyses.26 Shape identity into an image Techniques used to develop corporate competitive tactics and consumer products are borrowed and adapted to the urban setting. Market research tools, in dialogue with urban stakeholders27, will define the attributes that the proposed image needs to have, both inward - acceptance by, and participation of citizens - and outward - attractiveness to tourism, foreign investment, and human capital -. 28 These elements must be informed by, and linked to the city’s development plan, including, urban planning, conservation and upgrading programs, and tourism strategies. If this synergy is not carefully explored, the potential disruption caused by a city brand and an urban development plans sending mixed or contradictory messages becomes significant. Implementation Values and image are distilled into an icon, slogan, theme, symbol, logo, or a number of visual devices. The design of these instruments is next broadcasted to the target audience, a media plan that can include films, periodicals, specialist publications, TV and radio, event sponsorship, and other marketing mechanisms.

hereby referred to as the phenomenon of replication of Western values at a global scale As Michael Speaks (2002) points out, “cities are faced with the paradoxical problem of constructing identities based on differences that disappear at a rate proportional of the growth of global sameness”. 24

Among others topography, climate, material resources, and demography, religion, and governance systems respectively.

what Castells (1997) calls “the process of construction of meaning”

27 Individuals who have a vested interest in development, including community members; environmental, social, and community NGOs; natural resource, planning, and government officials; hotel owners, tour operators, guides, transportation providers, and representatives from other related services in the private sector. www.gdrc.org 28 Berci Florian (2002) points out, “solutions that are surprising, distinctive and cannot be copied”.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

3.3 Operative tools Architecture and urban space As soon as we think of urban spaces as texts, therefore we think on them also as “vehicles of ideology”. This means that circulation in the city is possible only in as much as urban spaces are, semiotically speaking, made up of readable signs whose meanings are continuously negotiated and decoded. Semiotics of the city as text can be politically useful. Moreover, calling urban spaces “vehicles of ideology”, this do not implies a one directional or static process. Different social actors, operating under unequal conditions, intervene modifying this text or subverting its dominant uses. As Georg Simmel argued: “The production of spatio-temporalities is both a constitutive and fundamental moment to the social process in general as well as fundamental to the establishment of values” Frederic Jameson specifies: “The building interpellates me – it proposes an identity for me, an identity that can make me uncomfortable or on the contrary obscenely complacent, that can push me into revolt or acceptance of my antisociallity and criminality or on the other hand into subalternity and humility, into the obedience of a servant or a lower class citizen. More than that, it interpellates me my body or interpellates me by way of the body”.29

Jameson, F (1997) “Absent Totality” in Davidson (ed) Anybody, Cambridge: MIT/Anyone Corporation

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 11: Las Vegas Covered Passage - NYC Ground Zero Skyline Proposal

A soon as they come into being, buildings and urban spaces signify. First, because they generate the structure of perception in the everyday urban experience of citizens. Such spatial changes can generate positive effects for the citizen, such as new sense of cleanliness, rationalization pride and satisfaction with the current configuration of the city; or negative effects such as a sense of alienation and displacement at the loss of the original habitat.30 Spaces are always socially constructed and subject to change and transformation. As Lefebvre put it, architecture is not an object but a process. Buildings, streets, plazas are conditioned in their form and meaning by those who designed and financed them, in so doing, endowed them with dominant meanings. However, at the same time they are lived, experienced transformed in a myriad of spatial practices by the subjects interacting with them using and circulating through these spaces.

Figure 12: Harvard Architecture School Poster Seminar

Benjamin, W. (1973) Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, London : NLB

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

3.4 Alternatives to brand legibility Image buildings or building images As far as the feasibility is concerned, the building of towers or monuments is an old tradition to give a city an image. In the middle Ages, it was common, church towers as manifestation of ecclesiastical authority and belfries as an expression of bourgeois power. Old cities derived their identity from the clear and legible image of city walls and gates. In the past city gates indicated a clear physical boundary as an introduction to the protected city, as a point of communication “between” arrival and departure, inside and outside, market place and migration. The old city boundaries, the bearers of the city’s identity provided security and a defined area for policy and control. Today office blocks reflect the supremacy of the business world on the culture of the city. This is one the tactics of using buildings in order to give shape to the image of a city, as far as urbanisation is determined by the built context. We could define urban image to the existence of clear legible constructions.

Figure 13: “The Eiffel Tower and its successors” – Medieval Towers San Geminiano, Italy – Petronas Tower – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Branding can be achieved in a wide range of strategies going from conceptual images to physical build structures. These strategies can be developed from absolute figurative assignment of emotional associations to a city or district; using metaphors as a carrier of new significance; through manipulation of the visual appearance of the city, and at the end creating a new identity by building architecture or infrastructure. We should consider city branding as a material free urban design, a virtual mirror image that reveals, transforms and forces the reality of the city to change. Branding would be a concept that strings together economy, conceptualisation and ambitions.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

While some opinions give branding a theoretical explanation, others make a connection between branding and architecture and urban design through different techniques and media. With abstract conceptualisations as point of departure, city branding could be approached via linguistic techniques, and, through the realisation of concrete building, its image can be changed. Branding must be consequently operational on two levels, the level of feasibility and on the level of the perception, with one interactive strategy intervening at these two levels. For sure, this will not be operative on one level, and a hybrid needs to arise, counting with a gamma of socio-cultural, political and economic operational instruments as the driving forces for forming or regeneration of the urban imago. This urban imago should be understood as a dynamic image, where it has to become clear that we are dealing with a development or formation process. According to R. Koolhaas: “…I think that there are two kinds of identity. The current trend of branding is towards a terminal identity. It narrows the identity to one immutable and invariable condition. That this is a very conservative and reactionary form of branding, with in a way has as its main mission to exclude surprise and therefore to attract anyone who wants only one known thing in the largest possible numbers. I think there is much more interesting work that you can do with a brand or any identity, which is to make it more variable and less redundant in terms of its significance.(…) …..a European idea of the brand as something that is alive and that can assume many different identities and incur further development…”31

Branding – Signs, Symbols or something else? Charles Jencks in Conversation with Rem Koolhaas

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

4. The case of Barcelona 4.1 Why choosing the case of Barcelona? “In 1999, a precedent has been broken to award the Royal Gold medal to a city: Barcelona, its government, its citizens and design professionals of all sorts. Inspired city leadership, pursuing an ambitious yet programmatic strategy and the highest design standards, has transformed the city’s public realm, immensely expended its amenities and regenerated its economy, providing pride in its inhabitants and delight in its visitors (…). Probably nowhere else in the world are there so many recent examples, in large cities and small towns, of a benign and an appropriate attitude towards creating a civic setting for the next century”.32 Barcelona has in the past 10 to 15 years become the outstanding example of a way of improving cities and is most renowned for successfully branding itself within the country, the Mediterranean and even globally. The aim is to give an account what has happened in the city in relation to branding itself through urban design and architecture, and the reality behind this image. It describes how the governors, professional planners and architects, and in a wider sense the inhabitants of the city, carried on the succession of changes which began since the 1980s.

Figure 14: Aerial View from Av. Diagonal 2004 32 The above quotation comes from the press release by the prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) upon the award of their Gold medal to the city of Barcelona in 1999. [http://store.yahoo.com/award-schemes/ribroygolmed]. This text is paradigmatic of the dominant perception of the city as seen from abroad: a stylish and exciting metropolis, the perfect civic site for the urban communities of the twenty first century. The Barcelona brand and model has gained approval and is being copied on an international scale.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Barcelona has been continuously consolidating itself as place where the “quality architecture” is a central argument, as a use value and as a brand image, as a value of change for the development and the construction of the city. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of professionals, especially architects, in catalysing and implementing urban change, and the way in which the public space became a key ingredient of what has been generated the Barcelona brand. 33

Figure 15: [L] Interior Hotel near Agbar Tower [R] Fundacion Caixa Forum Source: Personal File

The past and current programmes for the city will be presented as well as assessments from cultural environmental perspectives, in order to identify what new approaches and challenges are emerging. We may expect Barcelona to continue to innovate in interesting ways, dealing with new emerging issues. The success of the Barcelona brand is particularly remarkable keeping in mind that, when the transition, Barcelona begins being one of most important focuses of social and political conflicts in the country, and when it ends up, the majority of the society is addressed in a modern identification and satisfied with the status quo. In order to give an overview of the city conditions and the context where the branding has been done it is necessary to outline the geographical and historical realities that lie behind and underneath the recent events. Besides commenting on the traditions of urban planning in the city, also presenting a set of facts and key dimensions of change. Unlike many others European cities, Barcelona has neither very intense heat, nor rarely

ARCHITETTURA IN SPAGNA_Casabella nº 724 Julio-Agosto 2004 - Preguntas: Perché l’architettura spagnola, cinque domande (Casabella) Contestan: Oriol Bohigas-Luis Mansilla-Josep Lluis Mateo-Rafael Moneo

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

sub-zeros temperatures, just slightly cooler and wetter winters. The coastal location moderates the climate, eases communication for many goods, gives many leisure opportunities, and serves as a sink for numerous wastes throughout the city’s history. Barcelona’s situation is on a coastal corridor between France, Italy and the north, and the south and Africa. The city has a thin strip that runs along the coast from northwards, with a range of hills behind that and a wider inland depression. Catalonia has been seen as always taking much from the Europe to the northeast, and feeding these influences southwards. The nearest competing urban centres are far away – Valencia 373 km south, Zaragoza 296 km inland, Madrid almost out of sight at 621 km. On a local scale, it is located on a rather sloping site between two important rivers, the Llobregat to the south and Besos to the north, forming deltas with the respective commercial and location advantages that this natural formation carries. There is also a constraining balance of hills and flatter areas available, with the relatively inaccessible parts of Montjuic and Colserolla setting limits to developments, and then becoming available as important leisure and ecological zones. The importance of the geographical and environmental history has always been matched by that of economic and political history. The epic all-Spain conflict of the Civil War 1936–39 and its later dictatorship defeated on Catalonia, and with it Barcelona, marking this is as a vital ingredient in the urban history of the period since then. This is one of the distinguishing features that must be at the forefront of any explanation of planning’s vitality since the 1970’s. Another vital feature was the success of the industrial development in the region, giving a base of confidence for tackling the challenges of urban stress, challenges that came with the period of rapid urbanization from the 1950s to the 1970s. The core municipality of Barcelona has annexed surrounding municipalities between the 1870s and the 1920s, so it had space to control its own growth up to the most recent decades. The political issue of jurisdictions is very important. Barcelona became, large enough to make its weight count, matching resources to the confidence, which came with knowing that it was Catalonia’s capital and the challenger Madrid in directing Spain’s trajectory. This issue of political power runs through the planning history of the city for centuries, and gives a backdrop to every single big planning decision. The dynamics work at two main levels, the most important, has been between local forces in the city itself and the Spanish state marshalled from Madrid. The secondary scale dynamic has been the city and the wither region, particularly the nation of Catalonia.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 16 Coastal zone of Barcelona, 1999

One of the ingredients on this successful transformation is the urbanism tradition. This is because of the legacy of, Ildefons Cerda. His plan of 1857 formed the foundation for the next all the next developments. Often the city was ahead of developments in Spain generally. Architects cooperated closely with other key professionals, above all economists, checking that the funding arrangements for infrastructure will succeed. The involvement of politicians was often quite deep, even in the detail schemes. The skills developed in dealing with open spaces and streets came out of the same inheritance, form Cerda onwards. Plans for the broad structuring of the city are accompanied by design at often at a very detailed scale. At the same time, there was a strong incorporation of the social and economic dimensions with the physical analysis, and these elements supporting the plan. This has been one factor in the emergence of “strategic planning” in the late 1980s. This seeks to guide forward planning for the city as a whole more comprehensible, and ensure that locally oriented urbanism responds to the strategic plans emerging from these exercises34

Asociacio Pla Estrategic Barcelona 2000 published in 2000, Borja and Castells 1997)

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Alongside and partially related to this physical development of the territory has been extensive change of the economy and of the environment. Some of these changes were: shifts in economic sectors, usually summarized as tertiarization, shifts in economic locations: creation of a new regional industrial ring, large new office complexes and new leisure and tourist complexes, shifts in types of work, and of workers, shifts in travel patterns, especially an explosion of commuting and leisure travel. Besides a new period of immigration, in the 1990s and the wider context within the city region functions, the key words are Europeanization, globalization, with a different relationship to the rest of Spain. Barcelona growth of non commercial tertiary sqm [1980 -2000] 1800 1688 1600

1400 1226 1200

1000

800 580 600

400

266

200 thousand of

2000

1995

1990

1985

sq. m.

Figure 17: BCN Grow of Non Commercial Tertiary sqm Source: Encuestas sobre actividades y formas de vida de la poblacion en la Region Metropolitana, pralozadas por el Institut d’Estudis Metropolitans (1990,95 y 2000) Evolucion de la poblacion y de la renta familiar disponible: Institut d’Estadistica de Catalunya

As key dimensions of this branding process, we highlight the Public spaces and buildings designs. This has been the area of intervention par excellence, perceived by most visitors to the city, as well as for many citizens. It includes new roads, and redesign of existing roads; new public spaces – squares, beaches, promenades (rambles). Besides new public buildings, most delivering public services (libraries, museums, sports centres, offices, community centres, health centres, schools, markets), some doubling up as tourist venues and new infrastructure – many expanded or completely new facilities, whether the large storm drains, rail extensions or diversions, stations, airport, street lighting, communications.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

It is remarkable the quality of design across these programmes. Discussion has also focused on the public space component of the programmes, drawing out a lesson on democratic interaction on the streets and the encounter of diversity that this enables.35 Streets are for all whatever income, colour of skin or age a person may have. The tradition common to Mediterranean countries, of frequent use of streets and other spaces for festivals and parties, reinforces the willingness of politicians to invest in street quality and to sponsor regularly such festivals at the level of the city and each neighbourhood. The dominant political party has been the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalonia (PSC), the Catalan affiliate of the Partido Obrero Espanol (PSOE). It has lost no election since 1979. They have had three leaders on the council: Narcis Serra (1979 -82), the second was Pasqual Maragall with successive victories in elections in 1983, 1987, 1991, and 1995. He had a strong interest and expertise in planning, and his planning success lay in the ability to combine urban development with policies on culture, economic development, transport, etc. The third leader was Joan Clos, groomed for a year or two before 1997. He had made a success of renewal in the old city. Maragall pushed before leaving the commitment to a new “big event”, the 2004 Forum. There is no doubt that the quality of majors has mattered in Barcelona. Barcelona Evolution of different sectors of activity [%] 80 71.9 70 64.7

58.2

60 53.9 50

45.6

37.8 35

27.7

primary

secondary + construc

0.5

0.3

1996

1991

1981

1971

tertiary

Figure 18: BCN Evolution of different sectors of activity

Borja 2000, Balibrea 2004

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona] Source: Evolucion de los sectores de actividad: Institut d’Estadistica de Catalunya (censos de poblacion) Revista Barcelona Economia (Ayuntamiento de Barcelona) Institut de Turisme de Barcelona

300 9000000

Barcelona hotels growth [1990-2006]

Barcelona nights spended in hotels [1990-2001] 252

8000000

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4000000 3795520

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0 1990

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Figure 19: BCN Evolution of the Hotels Source: Evolucion de los sectores de actividad: Institut d’Estadistica de Catalunya (censos de poblacion) Revista Barcelona Economia (Ayuntamiento de Barcelona) Institut de Turisme de Barcelona

All this branding process have been carrying lots of benefits for gains for a broad percentage of the city’s inhabitants – in public spaces, in public facilities, in infrastructure, in housing, in providing jobs. To resume the conditions given for that achievement it should be highlighted the skills and commitments of professionals, the inhabitants involved “at the base” in the neighbourhoods. Besides the energy spread, released after the end of a dictatorship – Francoism, the ideology contained within a broadly hegemonic political project and the historical and geographical features described previously.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

4.2 The operative tools for branding Barcelona is a brand that began to be engineered and designed around 1986. The 1992 Olympic Games were just the peak moment of a strategy that was being deployed quietly for many years. It consists of conceiving vast cultural projects, which are in fact thinly camouflaged development strategies. One of the differences between this way of functioning and other revitalization plans that are currently being deployed over a string of cities all around the world is that in this case massive cultural events are being used to change Barcelona's face and value.36 The events in these situations are intended as an excuse to develop areas of the city. By doing so Barcelona captures a great amount of symbolic capital that can rapidly be exchanged for money through attracting tourists, visitors and culture seekers. However, tourism is an entity that devours and can rapidly use up a city's pool of symbolic capital, so Barcelona must continually renew its activities and cultural agents. Architecture and Urban Space

The case of Barcelona is considered a very successful urban development, particularly its design and architecture, with a high functional and aesthetic quality, as well as efficient policies that were supporting it, and translating the impact on the citizens and the city economy. The urban transformation of Barcelona has been materialized with the interventions on the urban public space that architects and designers are having carried out a particularly big politic transcendence. “Design” Buildings and urban furniture are the elements that once in the public space are the material culture with which the citizens and the social collective interact and replicate themselves. Going particularly with the case of architecture and design disciplines, its protagonism on the transformations of the Barcelona brand, we have to take in account the quantity and the specially the quality of this interventions, which contribute to the aesthetization of the city and its visualization. That means the intensification of the aesthetic value talking the opinion of the users and inhabitants of the city.

for more information about the role artists have in the regeneration urban areas see David Panos 'Create Creative Clusters' Mute, Issue 28, 2004

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

As the necessities to establish an exportable Barcelona brand are imposed, the architectural interventions are commissioned, built and read more and more as a specular and spectacular element in the city. The existence of an institutional organism, Barcelona Set Film Commission 37 that regulates and facilitates the processes to make possible the incorporation of the image of Barcelona in diverse visual format, and whose services are offered for free, is very significant the importance that from the Local Government is given to the image diffusion of the city. This shows e.g., how film industry 38 can be converted as an ideological agent able to contribute to the naturalization and reinforcing of the brand and model image of Barcelona. The interest for the city as a stage is significant because it recognizes on its choice the positive image of Barcelona, and intensifies on its use the specular and spectacle condition from this brand model. That reality is observable in every supported type with a visual element that serves to present the city, and it has in the cinema another of its privileged receivers.

Figure 20: Todo sobre mi madre, Almodóvar, 1999 37

Ajuntament de Barcelona, Institut de Cultura. BCN Plató Film Comission. (en línea) (Consulta: 20 de septiembre, 2004). Disponible en: http://www.barcelonaplato.bcn.es/html2/es/quees.html

We could show this impact on some selection of movies that where made on the city, integrating the de city as a space to be captured visually. For example Barcelona (Whit Stillman, 1994), All about my mother (Todo sobre mi madre, Almodóvar, 1999), Gaudí Afternoon (Susan Seidelman, 2002), L’auberge espagnole (Cedric Klapisch, 2002), Under Construction (En construcción, José Luis Guerín, 2002), En la ciudad (Cesc Gay, 2003) All about my mother is a particularly enthusiastic film of the Barcelona model, because takes advantage to present and integrate celebrating it, not only the Gaudí heritage and the Mediterranean condition with the presence of immigrant population. On the film L´auberge espagnole, Barcelona is showed as a tolerant, open, amusing city, sensual for young people.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Culture, architecture and the generation of a concept

From the 1970s Barcelona was transformed into another example of what has been known globally as a post-industrial city. Under these circumstances, it became imperative to look for a way to make local economy sustainable. This signalled the beginning of a shift in the city’s economy towards “clean” industries devoted to the production of culture and technology39: a local manifestation of a worldwide process where information and entertainment become the driving forces, necessitating the proliferation of sports infrastructures and large commercial and cultural centres. The most important changes affecting the social body and the economy have been justified in the name of culture40, which becomes the structural axis. By invoking culture, the ideological continuity of the consensus with regard to the city has been made possible. The connection between culture and urbanism and architecture is established through the latter’s capacity to create public space: defined as open to all 41 , and therefore as the place of encounter and of the production of collective culture. The new urbanism in Barcelona is characterized by the enormous proliferation of cultural spaces (spaces that house “Culture” with a capital C) and public spaces of a great impact and visibility: squares and monuments came first, then museums, theatres, sport complexes, avenues, promenades.

“…in urban competition factors like the environment and cultural and educational infrastructures count more and more. In a strategic sense we can say that cities are like businesses which compete to attract investments and residents, selling places which are suitable for industry, commerce and all kinds of services”42

City Council Manifesto; Pla Estrategic Barcelona 2000 Ajuntament de Barcelona, Institut de Cultura. Plan Estratégico del sector cultural de la ciudad (21sep2004).Disponible en: http://www.bcn.es/accentcultura/cast/index.htm 40

Public space is nominally for all citizens, but in practicality, access to it is restricted to certain individuals or groups. During the modern period, access to public spaces was determined by gender (since women - burgeois woman – were supposed mainly to occupy the private sphere), but also race and social class. According to Frederic Jameson: “public space is what interpelates me as an intruder while the existence or the warning of a truly public space can be measured by the degree to which it still interpelates me as a citizen” 42 Pasqual Maragal [Mayor,1999]. Source Ajuntament de Barcelona

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Culture is also redefined because those representing the public interest (local governments) now understand culture as a key industry for the local economy, and not just as the symbolic realm where ideology is produced or as the realm of aesthetics. According to this, culture (“ideas, sensibilities, projects”) is a commodity that needs to be produced in a competitive market, for which purpose certain means of production (“cultural structures and resources”) are also necessary. This is a fundamental ideological element, although not the only one of the attainment of the consent and of the interiorization of a new brand image from Barcelona. This image is generated for the citizens, and it will also be reoriented with branding techniques for its consumption and competitiveness in a world market. In Barcelona, the sector that has demonstrated a bigger competitiveness inside this until the moment is the “creative sector”, which makes Barcelona an eminently cultural city. A wide lattice of cultural industries feeds the tertiary sector, that of the goods and consumption services in leisure: design, architecture, fashion, cinema and media, entertainment software, theatre, music, dance, museums and heritage, advertising publicity, gastronomy, editorial and hotel sector. In order to sustain this economy, new and deeper changes are justified more and more in the urban fabric. Barcelona as a city thought to be seen and also to be lived, where the urban transformations respond to the necessities of the spectacle or the event - city, to which it gives priority, because without it is impossible to attract tourists or investors that make viable the urban economy. Many of them are related on one way or another with the cultural exploitation and many studies have been generated around them trying to define the undergoing processes of the globalized, culturalized and service-economy city lifestyle. It is spoken a lot about festivalization of cities, of their into theme-park transformations, of the event-city or the experience economy.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The branding strategies that affected Barcelona: In order to generate the needed brand a series of strategies where developed. On one hand, using the existent resources and three examples of this can be highlighted. One is the restoration of the architectural and artistic historical heritage. In the case from Barcelona, it is necessary to mention the care with which the great monumental Modernist heritage has been restored, with Gaudí on the top of the list, as the main contributor to the comparative advantage that Barcelona offers. The contemporary protagonism of this Modernist heritage helped to reconstruct and to privilege today to the material Catalan culture to which it belongs. The modern and avant-garde character of the Catalan Modernist architecture is very smartly used at a discursive and architectural level, in a line of continuity, with the contemporary urban transformations of the Barcelona model. Those are integrated this way in a Barcelona brand that offers an image of quality in the built space that is coherent, unique and different, like how every brand must be in order to be competitive. The influence of Gaudí and, to extension, of the

architectural

modernism

the

iconography

the

Barcelona

brand

unquestionable. There is no another icon that relates the city with the effectiveness of this in an international environment.

Figure 21: Gaudi Heritage was completely restored

Figure 22: Renovation from building in the Old District

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

At the same time, and as the second example, am important cultural policy was organized around all the museums with a coherent reading of the image of the city. It has on them a cultural spectacle that contributes to the urban offer and it generates a comparative advantage. Barcelona has been able to consolidate itself, politically and symbolically, as the capital of a Catalan nation without a state, like the conception of Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, the reconstruction and extension of the Liceu, the building of a Theatre Nacional de Catalunya. Other Spanish cities such Madrid (centro de Arte Reina Sofia), Bilbao (Museo Guggenheim) and Valencia (Institut Valencia de A’rt Modern), have had a policy of embodying their “state” politics in one large cultural centre by a big-name architect, the container being as important as its contents. Barcelona, however, has chosen to disseminate the politic-symbolic meaning projected by the cultural space in multiple architectural interventions. Moreover, the fact that the CCCB43 is recognized to be emulating Pompidou Centre in Paris, but also striving to make Catalan city into a part of the tourist circuit of great cultural cities and capitals of Europe. The MACBA44, the R. Meier building which contains the museum is the closest thing in Barcelona to the Guggenheim in Bilbao: a space conceived as a tourist attraction in itself.

Figure 23: MACBA, R. Meier

43 44

CCCB Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona [www.cccb.org/eng/cccb.htm] Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona [www.macba.es]

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The third example of using the existent resources is the recovery and improvement of the own natural resources. In the case of Barcelona, this is materialized in its opening to the sea and in the accentuation of the most obvious and exportable Mediterranean brand of the city that is are projected, beyond only the sun and the beach, to prestigious millennial culture belonging and global attractiveness and to the geopolitical location.

Figure 24: Aerial view from the Coastal Development at Forum 2004

Figure 25: Aerial view from the Coastal Development at Olympic Port 1992

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

On the other hand is the strategy of competing, on two different fronts: Madrid, and the Mediterranean Region. Besides for lack of competitions and contest, even able to generate them in order to sport, artistic and cultural events (Biennials, Cultural Capital, Olympic Games, Forum 2004, Sonar Festival that once concluded, they will justify the investment on infrastructures and “signature” or quality buildings. This strategy gets a great mediatic attraction and a participation of lots tourists during the events, and the effect remains with the incorporation of permanent urban elements that will continue making the city attractive (liveable , consumable, visitable) to local and outsiders. These events have become macro cultural commodities whose production and consumption is increasing exponentially in the global market of leisure and culture, and the desire of the cities to produce them it is so much, that it causes as effect of an increase of the cultural industry of the urban spectacle. In Barcelona, these were the functions of the Olympic Games of 1992, which operation strategy was repeated with less convincing and more polemic arguments in the organization of the First Universal Forum of Cultures 2004. Culture in the service economy increases its commodities value, with the status added value for the consumers. However, in a globalized context where the potential consumer to whom to provide status comes from outside the city in important amount, the fight for getting the hosting of these cultural, artistic and sport events, demands its global legibility.

“there emerges a certain globally shared formula for what is representative and what is not, implying that most metropolitan centres today offer much the same mixture of events, fairs, heritage buildings, ethnic restaurants and so on. One might say that the intensified exchange of capital and culture generates global ensembles of urban diversity and specificity –ensembles which are not so place-specific after all” André Jansson45

Jansson, André, “Contested meanings: audience studies and the concept of cultural identity", Intexto, núm.5, 1999.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The attractive image of a city, projected into an international scale with branding strategies, fights not only for attracting a lucrative tourist market but also private and public investors at a global scale. In this career to obtain a comparative advantage in the global market, each city reproduces strategies that, are the same ones that those of its competitors. Barcelona is a case, which determinant frame is the global structural need of western cities to socio-economically reconvert themselves to survive in the frame of its deindustrialization. These concepts operate among the local-global poles, among those, it oscillates, on one hand the urban policies with the local answers to them, and on the fitting these in a global socioeconomic frame that result in the hybrid that we will call glocal, as two poles between the more socially positive principles and effects of the transformations in Barcelona. The implementation of concrete policies urban, materialized in public spaces as squares, civic centres, monuments, parks, streets, or simply in new urban furniture, has lead to the creation of a new city concept, of a new image that is certainly interiorized and assumed with pride for many Catalans. The consolidation of this image and its solid impact is feasible in the public consent surrounding it. This has being able to endow each concrete intervention in the urban space with a coherent symbolic speech. In each occasion, in each encounter and citizen's interaction with the urban space, it demonstrates and remembers the Barcelonese that their city is democratized, europeized and distinguished as vanguard, not only of the Spanish modernity, but also of the European and the global modernity at the same time.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

4.3 The branding events The rehabilitation and face lifting of entire key areas created new urban spaces and cultural facilities, many of them public, which without fail include an architectural project by a named architect. The presence, and convenient branding, of work in the city by Foster, Meier, Viaplana, Calatrava, Izosaqui, Moneo, Miralles, Herzog & deMeuron, F.O.A. and others intensifies the aesthetic signification of these projects, turning them, by the same token, into privileged signifiers of what is called a “designer” city. The tributes paid to the city’s beauty helped to distract the attention of visitors distract the attention of visitors and citizens alike from other fundamental much less satisfactory, issues: employment, housing, public transport, or even the questioning of the same urban projects whose aesthetic value is so intensively praised. Drawing on Benjamin’s dictum, that the more aesthetic is politically used in Barcelona, the more politics it is self aestheticized, so the political consensus and the obedience of the masses are achieved by continually producing for them what is perceived as aesthetic or artistic gratification. Is clear then that a city is an ideological text. The quality of the urban interventions has served to low the impact of real estate speculation and population's substitution or gentrification through some public policies. The city is alive in all it social actors and in the fights for appropriation of the space, the meaning and the changes in the urban spaces do not cease. Barcelona has elements of democratic and integrative urbanism that continue present in the social and built space of the city. Besides the city was regenerated under the image of connecting the new urbanity with an architectural collective memory. A city that at opening and selling itself attracts more than tourists and investors, bringing new social agents as immigrants and other forms of “counter-tourism.” We recover the concept of the brand, like a particular form of understanding the relationship with the urban space that consists on affirming the rights from all the citizens to the city, materializing it in positive social urban transformations. There are four different spheres of public operation46 during the whole process at the urban visual improvement scheme: Barcelona Posa’t Guapa (Let’s Embellish Barcelona) including the recuperation of the Old City, the Olympics Games 1992, the Forum 2004 and Diagonal Mar Project47

Raventos 2000 Tercer Plà Estratègic Econòmic i Social de Barcelona en la perspective 1999-2005 (21sep2004). Disponible en: http://www.bcn2000.es/Usuarios/43B94/archivos/ZDE/III_pla.pdf 47

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

“Barcelona posa’t guapa” campaign48 1986 – 1999

This program is intended to promote and subsidize the face lifting of key buildings located around the city. “The embellishment programme promoted through the Barcelona posa’t guapa campaign consolidated the citizen’s perception of public space as a common good, contributes to the improvement of the collective heritage and increased the comfort, tranquillity and sociableness if the city”.49 This campaign has massively benefited the modernist architectural patrimony of the city, mostly located in the Eixample district. It is not coincidental that this modernist heritage, dominated by the work of Antoni Gaudi, has become one of the pillars sustaining the city’s tourist cultural provision and, more generally, of its constructed image and personality. The proliferation of similar restorations, together with a policy of awarding the category of listed building to some of these restored properties, (which means that they are considered part of the city, that is, part of a public, patrimony), has become an enormously successful political strategy. This brilliantly exploits the one communal, collective aspect of most of these buildings: the fact their facades can be seen from the public space of the streets. The organizer of this campaign is the Institute of Urban 50

Landscape and Quality of Life . Its origins are in 1986, when the City Hall launched the Campaign "Barcelona, posa't guapa" (Let's Embellish Barcelona), which invited all the Barcelonans to restore their buildings. All along the years, that initiative became an important project for the transformation and improvement of the city, which generated a new section of municipal activities related to the new concepts of "urban landscape", and "quality of life".

Let's Embellish Barcelona

Pasquall Maragall [ex-Mayor] Ajuntament de Barcelona (1999) Barcelona, posa’t guapa. 13 anys, Barcelona: Institut Municipal del Paisatge Urba i la Qualitat de Vida 50 http://www.bcn.es/paisatgeurba/angles/frameset.htm

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

With the creation of the Institute, the City Hall ended up the structuring process of this new activity segment and chose the most adequate organizational model in order to adjust the urban landscape management to the needs of citizens, entities, and the private sector, who are the agents actually involved in the preservation and improvement of the city. The Campaign and the Institute of Urban Landscape and Quality of Life has been achieving the following objectives:

Protecting, maintaining and improving the landscape elements that are characteristic of the image of Barcelona.

Enhancing the civic values, that allows relationships between citizens to be more comfortable, fair and democratic.

Ensuring a careful and rational use of the urban landscape as an essential instrument in the city's conservation.

Promoting the participation of society, both at public and private level, in becoming responsible for the maintenance, as well as the direct recovery, of the landscape and its elements.

Promoting Barcelona and its urban transformation model, as a reference for all cities in the world.

Undertaking the general management of the By-law on the use of urban landscape, organizing the use of publicity signs placed on public roads, as well as municipal concessions concerning this subject.

Promoting private actions for the preservation and improvement of the urban landscape in which citizens, associations and the private sector have the leading role.

Channelling public resources: campaign on subsidies.

Channelling private resources: sponsorship and landscape adjustment.

During the process of this program these are some the achievements: 25,600 property improvement actions, 17,000 subsidised façade refurbishment works, 6,500,000 m2 of façades refurbished, work done on 30% of the city's stock of buildings.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The campaign’s success lies on the fact that, by supporting the numerous initiatives from citizens, Barcelonans are now increasingly valuing the city’s urban landscape, and they are more conscious about the importance of building maintenance.

Figure 26: Campaign logo: Barcelona posa't guapa [Let's embellish Barcelona]

Through the campaign’s actions, the urban landscape of Barcelona no longer has that grey patina obtained along all along the years, and is recovering the colour richness of its architecture. In order to make sure that this recovery contributes to the creation of a harmonious visual environment by recovering the original colour of buildings, the Institute offered a guiding chromatic code to citizens: the colour chart of Barcelona.

Figure 27: Special processing: Colour

Especially in the case of modernist and nineteenth-century-style buildings, a large number of facades in Barcelona are decorated with a great variety of graffitos. The campaign has also succeeded in recovering this decorative richness.

Figure 28: Special processing: graffitos

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Among other possible solutions to restore facades and party walls, the most imaginative one was the creation of trompe-l’oeil mural, which simulates the existence of architectonic elements.

Figure 29: Special processing: Trompe l’oeil murals

The decorative elements in buildings –such as the ones located in balconies, crests, or on the façade- need a careful maintenance, both to guarantee their security, and to preserve the architectonic richness and harmony of the original design.

Figure 30: Special processing: Recovering details

Figure 31: Statistical Info about the program. Source: The Institute of Urban Landscape and Quality of Life

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The 1992 Olympics Games

The goal of 1992 allowed to the ruling political class from Barcelona to get a popular support without great dissidences, building the Games like the catalyst or accelerator of the modernization processes, leading after the Olympic Games also to the entrance of Barcelona in a global market of cities. The Olympic Games catapulted Barcelona internationally and put it in the map of event-cities. The massive tourist presence and the global mediatic projection put it to world scale. The nomination of the city as the site for 1992 Olympic Games permitted a radical change of scale of the intervention. Today, the organisation of big events is almost mandatory for cities that want to mobilise resources in order to keep in shape for international competition. It is to be said that in the case of Barcelona this is a hardly original strategy, since the city has used it from times in the last 100 years: 1888 Universal Exhibition, 1929 Universal Exhibition, 1992 Olympic Games The organisation of the Games permitted a complete change of scale of urban generation in Barcelona. If until then we had been speaking about squares, streets and gardens, after the Olympic nomination we were able to speak of new ring roads, seaports and Olympic Villages51 The first decision was that the Games were to be the games of the city and in the city. Therefore, four areas were chosen inside the municipality of Barcelona to locate the four Olympic areas52:

Poble Nou, Olympic Village (Nova Icaria)

Montjuïc, where the stadium, the sport palace and the swimming facilities were allocated

Diagonal

Vall d'Hebron

51 ACEBILLO, Josep Antoni, 1990 "De la plaza Trilla a la Villa Olímpica. Notas sobre el progresivo cambio de la escala en las intervenciones urbanas de Barcelona entre 1980 y 1992" in Barcelona, la ciutat i el 92. Barcelona : HOLSA. Olimpiada Cultural, p.27-57. FERRER, Amador, 1994 "Barcellona 1992" in VENTURI, Marco,(ed.), Grandi eventi. La festivalizzazione della politica urbana. Venezia : il Cardo editore, p.139-151.

52 MILLET, Ll., 1990 "Las áreas olímpicas" in Barcelona, la ciutat i el 92. Barcelona : HOLSA. Olimpiada Cultural, p.266-277.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

What these allocations have in common is that they were in limits between the relatively well-coordinated 19th century city and peripheral areas of the 1960 and 1970. Poblenou, where the Olympic Village was to be located, was an old industrial area that appeared in the 19th century, concentrating both industrial sites and working class housing. It was one of the centres of the industrial revolution in Barcelona and in Spain. When the intervention was decided, most industrial activities had already left the area, which gathered many marginal uses: industrial sites, old fish market, army barracks, women jail, beaches that had become dumping grounds for household rubbish and industrial waste. The project was developed by a team of architects and planners led by Oriol Bohigas, one of Barcelona's most influential planners.53

Figure 32: Location of the four areas where the main Olympic interventions for 1992 were sited. Source: Oriol Bohigas, Imagen de Barcelona 1992

Figure 33: Organization of the Olympic Villa, Seafront and Park. Source: Oriol Bohigas, Inagen de Barcelona 1992 53

MARTORELL, Josep et al., 1991 The Olympic Village Barcelona'92. Architecture, Parks, Leisure Port. Barcelona : Gustavo Gili. RIBAS PIERA, Manuel, 1992 "La Villa Olímpica, inicio de cambio en el modelo urbano de Barcelona" in Ciudad y Territorio, 93.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The starting point was that the Olympic Village was to be, after the Games, a normal area of the city perfectly integrated to it and with it. So, a normal neighbourhood, not an anomalous phenomenon, not an urban ghetto. From this starting point, the project developed three set of ideas relating54:

Infrastructure: The idea in this area was to create the basis for

effectively opening to the seafront. This implied the removal of the coastal railway tracks (4 Km) that created a physical barrier between the city and the beaches, placing underground other railway tracks that were a barrier between the rest of the city and Poblenou area, rehabilitation of beaches, new highway underground in order to avoid the creation of a new barrier. This permitted to gain 18 Ha of beaches in a 4 km front and 50 Ha of parks.

Morphology: A continuity of the urban pattern, streets, squares,

blocks, following the 19th century grid ideated by Ildefons Cerdà, the engineer who planned the physical expansion of Barcelona in the 19th century and one of the fathers of contemporary planning.

Uses: Not only housing but as wide commercial areas, shops,

offices, recreation.

Figure 34: Aerial view of Olympic Port and its surroundings.

Nel·lo, Oriol (1997): The Olympic Games as a tool for urban renewal: the experience of Barcelona’92 Olympic Village [online article]. Barcelona: Centre d’Estudis Olímpics UAB. [Consulted: 15/01/06] <http://olympicstudies.uab.es/pdf/wp090_eng.pdf>

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The implementation of these principles in physical terms followed a scheme consisting of a series of five successive strips to the seaside:

Beaches and Olympic Harbour. One kilometre of beaches in front of the Olympic Village, with a series of piers protecting the sand from the dominant stream that flows in East-West direction. The Olympic harbour with a capacity for 700 boats in the water and 300 ashore, with 75% of public space (bars, restaurants, commercial space, etc).

Seaport promenade. 30 meters wide pedestrian seafront promenade with cafes, restaurant and other facilities.

Coastal activities. Two towers 100 meters high for hotels and offices and other minor buildings.

Figure 35: Beaches and Seaport Promenade.

Figure 36: urban furniture at the beach and seaport promenade

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 37: Recover of the waterfront for leisure activities

Highway. Part of the city system of ring roads, with high traffic intensity (120,000 vehicles a day). The problem here was how to implement this infrastructure without creating a new barrier, both physical and visual (as in many other cities: Genoa, Buenos Aires, could be examples of this). Therefore, the expressway was placed underground (in gallery or in a trench) and a normal street was created at ground level for local traffic.

There was finally an integrated system of parks both for the use of the communities living around and in the nearby neighbourhood.

Figure 38: Connection between Olympic Ring (Montjuic) and the Olympic Village (Nova Icaria) with a system of highways and parks.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 39: Aerial views over the Port and Sport facilities at Montjuic

Development already started before the official nomination of Barcelona for 1992 Summer Olympic Games55. In December 1986, a public firm was created in order to start the operations. The company was 100% public but it had the possibility to act as a limited firm and incurring in debts independently of the municipal budget. The public private partnership was instrumental for the success of the whole operation. But nevertheless it is to be pointed out that whereas most of the investment was private the design and the management of the operation was mostly public, following a pattern that was general in Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games.

Figure 40: Sport facilities on the hill of Montjuic

MARTORELL, Josep et al., 1991 The Olympic Village Barcelona'92. Architecture, Parks, Leisure Port. Barcelona : Gustavo Gili.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Forum 2004 – Diagonal Mar Another macro project was proposed since 1997, by the local government; that of “Barcelona 2004: Forum Universal de les Cultures” While the Olympic Games provided a great opportunity to redevelop and restructure the city, the Forum was design to continue such task. It is on the Coastal Face in the East where the most important urban project has been realised, resulting in a land extension of 214 hectares. The Forum area integrates the large environmental infrastructures in a new urban coastal front. This urban project was intended in order to define the Barcelona of the future.

Figure 41: Forum Master Plan

The modernisation of these infrastructures, which includes the thermal power station, which will use natural gas instead of fuel, the creation of an Ecoparc, and the design of a new waterworks, is an action towards sustainability.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 42: Diagonal Mar and Forum Area

A large esplanade of 15 hectares partially covers the waterworks and opens the Diagonal Avenue to the sea. This new large-scale public space is connected to a group of emblematic buildings such as the Forum Building and the International Convention Centre. On the new coastline, consisting of three peninsulas of 49 hectares gained from the sea, we find a recreational port, new beaches and swimming areas. This project, very public in nature, also anticipates the construction of a university campus, housing units, offices and new access points which will improve the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Figure 43: Forum Building – Herzog & DeMeuron

Figure 44: Conference Center _ Jose Luis Mateo Source: Urbanisme de Barcelona

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 45: Southeast Coastal Park_ FOA

Figure 46: Coastal Park Development Source: Ajuntament Barcelona

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Introducing spaces in a peripheral area and advocating an unusual combination of programs, Barcelona consolidates itself as a Mediterranean urban model, and extends its tradition of growth through the organization of large events. The celebration of the Forum 2004 has allowed a further opening of the city to the sea; where the former limits with the River Besos, a gigantic platform that supports signature buildings and conceals a sewage treatment plant has become the symbol of the ideas and the projects with which the new metropolitan landscape is being shaped. This was conceived with the idea of generating urban space in peripheral zones of the city, didactically mixing the waste areas with those for leisure; the will to pursue quality in architecture and landscape, convening a group of outstanding designers; the symbolic defence of sustainability, through both built objects and scheduled activities.

The 2004 Forum was designed too much more consciously with wider economic objectives in mind. Those involved with the project in the city hoped that this further push would bring the cities reputation and functioning onto a new plateau, without at the same time leaving a problematic burden of debt. Evaluation after the event will be probably as difficult to do as after the Olympics.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

4.4 The fore coming challenges

The popular consensus on Barcelona needs today to be regarded with scepticism and vigilance, particularly in view of increasing social polarization, the growth of a peripheral population which has seen its quality of life deteriorate since 1980s, and the massive speculation accompanying the restructuring of the periphery of the city. In the last times there has been a change of approach in the council to more dependence on private funding that has brought a shift of attitude, narrowing the range of matters on which the council wishes to negotiate with local groups. However, there is probably still a broad commitment to discussion on many issues with public participation and influence, where the council feels it has room to manoeuvre.

Figure 47: Plan showing the close location of the depressed neighborhood of La Mina with The Diagonal and Forum new development

Figure 48: Housing Developments at La Mina and new housing developments at Diagonal Mar

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 49: Location of this new typology of housing around the Forum Area

From the successful branding process in between the Olympic Games till the late 1990s, the City Council decided to continue with the urban development operation of advancing along the seafront. The original and main idea was to make areas of the city, which had previously been on the periphery more central. However, the path taken by the mayor’s office has been to restrict its activities to smoothing the way for investments by private capital, which means that the renovation process has become one of big business. The use of themes such as dialogue, solidarity, human rights, civil society, sustainable development; besides the cultural event and the slogans associated with it aim to attract international organisations (to get funding), multinational corporations (so that they commit to the urban renovation project) and the residents of Barcelona (to obtain consensus and legitimacy), define a kind of progressive rhetoric.

This is in fact refuted

by the increasing inequalities that the facilitation of this project is generating in the city. 56 The huge spatial redefinitions implemented in the city outskirts could end negating the original principles, the small scale; detailed, respectful urban project intended to bring direct benefit to the most depressed neighbourhoods and their inhabitants.

56 An acute criticism of the Forum project and the economic interests involved in the redevelopment of the areas where the Forum is located, including parts of the working class neighborhood Bess-La Mina) can be found in MadeinBarcelona, 1999

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Since 2000, there has been sharp a controversy about the futures plans in the city. More generally, there has been persistent criticism of the council’s inability to tackle housing needs, who cannot afford the spiralling cost of paying mortgages or rents in the city since the late 1980s. However, this is not a failure limited to Barcelona amongst western cities; and it is the one on which there has been perhaps more debate in the recent years. Besides, there is the view that Barcelona is gradually becoming a city more suitable for rich people, including tourists than for ordinary citizens. The cost of living in the city has certainly been a factor in the continuing exodus of people, although probably at a lesser rate. The shifting in the social composition of the city is the key issue for the present and there are surely major questions arising about the future social change.

Figure 50: Some graffiti in the center of Barcelona, manifesting social inequities about the use of spaces. Source: Personal Research

Figure 51: Neighbors, civic associations using very creative ways to demonstrate against the urban speculation. This flyer is organizing spontaneous constructions in public spaces like metro entrances, trees, etc Curiously the name of this organization is: MADE IN BARCELONA

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Even though the majority of these areas of new centrality, labelled as priority targets for urban development, were located in a very run down, peripheral zones, the new developments were not aimed at benefiting the existing local population. The extremely lucrative revaluation of the old industrial area, located next to marginal, working class neighbourhoods, where most of the new cultural, sports, entertainment, commercial and residential facilities were built would end up with the dislocation of original neighbourhoods.

500

Barcelona housing prices evolution [1985-2004]

450

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Figure 52: BCN Housing prices evolution Source: Encuestas sobre actividades y formas de vida de la poblacion en la Region Metropolitana, pralozadas por el Institut d’Estudis Metropolitans (1990,95 y 2000) Evolucion de la poblacion y de la renta familiar disponible: Institut d’Estadistica de Catalunya

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

This could start accelerating the destruction of the social fabric or small local business and impoverished the quality and quantity of public spaces, in favour of pseudo public spots. Many inhabitants of these neighbourhoods or their children have the facto been expelled from their historic communities, unable to afford the escalating prices of new residences in their now improved areas, or forced out buildings expropriated or demolition.57 This facilitated the transition to a situation of progressive privatization and more and more restricted access to public spaces.

2000000

Barcelona population evolution [1950-2001]

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1000000

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Figure 53b: BCN Population evolution Source: Source: Encuestas sobre actividades y formas de vida de la poblacion en la Region Metropolitana, pralozadas por el Institut d’Estudis Metropolitans (1990,95 y 2000) Evolucion de la poblacion y de la renta familiar disponible: Institut d’Estadistica de Catalunya

A number of grassroots groups whose members are affected by these specific problems have been organizing to defend citizens’ rights and to minimize the impact that these transformations are having on the city’s social fabric and politics. Good example of this is the Letter and Manifest “Against the urban and real state violence” and proposal for demonstration “Vamos a Chabolear Barcelona” 26.11.06 http://mobbingbcn.blogspot.com/

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

5. Conclusion Economic functionality alone does not explain the importance of city branding; the socio-cultural effect is what really matters. Brands enable agents in the city to more easily “read” each other and their environment of places and spaces. Brands are not purely a source of differentiation, but also identification, recognition, continuity and collectivity. This double cultural sociological effect of differentiation and collectivity, competition and certainty, is what makes city branding a powerful developing tool. Branding has been used mostly as a way to reinforce the promotion of economic policies of the city in a very competitive international context; therefore, the urban space has to be adapted conveniently. Besides having certain competitive advantages, it is necessary to know how to communicate them, even to recreate them. Through this project, some question arises concerning the effect of the branding processes on the different actors that interact in the cities. Since what was presented in the case of Barcelona, city brands tend to serve primarily economic and not social and/or cultural goals. Although the circumstances, derived social and cultural effects, such as an increased ‘pride’ in one’s city, increased identification and a feeling of cohesion, enhancement of the public sphere and an improved and more versatile infrastructure, they are in the first place directed to the urban affinities of economic groups. It would be interesting to change the image of more stigmatized neighbourhoods without carrying with it a change in their economic and social base. This is possible to be achieved with some architectural interventions, besides a promotion of the existent positive values, which will be able to enhance the positive image and to intervene in the improvement. Since all cities have multiple images and representations circulating, and the most potent of them are produced from the top, is very interesting to focus the attention toward those that are built from the base. Concepting or bottom up produced images and representations would be even able to redirect the political objectives, but is necessary also to clarify who is included in the bottom up approach.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

If we use branding in a different sense to that of the mere economic promotion, it could be used to offer alternative readings of the urban spaces. Unfortunately, the experience is that politicians and developers use branding as long as they need public support. They just (ab)use it to motivate singular plans in a plural way, and get rid of it as soon as the support has been given. Branding is still too much celebrated as a top down strategy and too little considered as a bottom-up source to facilitate and empower existing identities. Entrepreneurs, developers, politicians and architects prefer to express their own ideas and objectives, rather than empathize with, facilitate and/or empower existing collective identities. The non-desirable effects that a successful branding process in a city can have could end encouraging spatial and socio-cultural inequality and fragmentation rather than feelings of solidarity and communality. The task here will be to formulate brands so openly and generally that they can absorb as broad as possible a range of urban affinities and projects now and in the future. The city’s image and brand has to be in essence consequently maintained and updated. There is no single strategy to ensure a successful concepting process of the image of the cities, a holistic approach towards branding is required to the complex urban environment problems. The analysis and problems identified in this thesis intend to set an initial framework for subsequent analysis, studies and proposal. Therefore, much will depend on the tactic to choose the image as broad and enthusiastic enough to allow for or even stimulate unimagined futures, neglect or explicit avoidance of other possibilities. For the strategies and developing process of branding in cities or urban concepting all factors have to be analysed that influence the development - people, their values and organisations, habits and mentality, existent resources ant its possibilities, program, form, structure, design, architecture, visibility, etc. Ideally, all should be set to support and facilitate the creativity and cultural growth of the inhabitants and civic organizations participating in it. Unthinking transfer of successful cases to other cities or places without this analysis needs very careful thought.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

The basic element of city branding is cultural. Branding is about cultural images. Architecture is one of the elements - or the only visible element – that could be shaped and planned by the economic driven sectors. This is why architecture is such a prominent tool in city branding.

“…In the irreversible reconfiguration of large cities as service centres, culture plays a basic role. This is not just a matter of having a good supply of events, prestigious museums, for internal and tourist consumption. You also to, perhaps most importantly, have the capacity to receive, recycle and export ideas, sensibilities, projects which improve the internal quality of life and upgrade the city in international competition. No city with a rich cultural life lacks solid cultural structures and resources for contemporary creativity…” Pep Subiros | Director of the CCCB58

CCCB Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, http://www.cccb.org/eng/cccb.htm

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

6. Appendix: Interviews

This is an online interview with key thinkers on the topic of branding that have been carried on during the whole process of this thesis project. The intention was specifically to collect a multidisciplinary group in order to get different points of view and approaches. The results were incorporated as one of many sources in order to evaluate the branding process as an operative tool for architects and urban planners to improve conditions in the cities. AV: What is your opinion on the international professional discourse about "branding"? NB59: I believe that branding has been used mostly as a way to reinforce the promotion economic policies of the city in a very competitive international context. I agree that would be a top down approach, appropriate for urban policies that have their main objective of positioning locations in the international market. For that reason, the urban space is adapted conveniently, with the necessary infrastructures, the improvement of the environmental quality, etc. and, as it is evident, besides having certain competitive advantages, it is necessary to know how to communicate them, even to recreate them. From a more critical perspective, analyzing the construction of the mark or branding is useful to be able to interpret the urban transformation policies, where often is not so is not so obvious to be able to separate desires from achievements neither who are the main beneficiaries. FVB60: first of all, you have to make a distinction between the different discourses marketing people speak differently about "branding" than political/cultural activists use to speak about it, architects and urban planners also have a different approach due to their perspective. In general, people from an artistic background seem to be most interested and the most critical profession towards the relation of everyday life, everyday space and marketing strategies. Most architects and urban planners, especially in Germany, still believe that their job has 59 Nuria Benach teaches at the Department of Human Geography, University of Barcelona, and researches in the analyses of urban spaces in relation to consumption, identity and images. 60 Friedrich von Borries studied architecture at the ISA, St. Luc in Brussels, at the University of the Arts Berlin and at the Technical University Karlsruhe, where he received his PhD in 2004. From 2001 to 2003 he taught urban planning and architectural design at the Technical University Berlin, from 2002 to 2005 he works as lecturer and researcher at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. Since 2005 he is lecturer in history of urban design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. In 2005 he published a book about Nike’s urban marketing strategies and how they alter the city: Who’s afraid of Niketown? Nike-Urbanism, Branding and the City of Tomorrow.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

nothing to do with "branding" JLG61: From what I have gathered, which is based on limited resources in the US and UK, has been that branding, while effective in communicating an idea of place, is often utilized in ways that actually limit the way places are known. I am thinking of the work in the book “Selling Places” for example, which stems (for the most part) from a Marxist critique of capital and that tend to see the selling of place (branding being a component of this) as detrimental to the overall meaning of the city for a diverse public. I think that there is some truth to this but I suppose that it would all be dependent upon how a brand is developed. Organically or top down... BF:62 I think branding is still too much celebrated as a top down strategy and too little considered as a bottom-up source to facilitate and empower existing identities. After all entrepreneurs, developers, politicians and architects prefer to express their own ideas and objectives, rather than empathise with, facilitate and/or empower existing collective identities. I am managing the idea of a distinction between branding, as a top down approach, and concepting (coming from a new marketing idea) as bottom up approach for building an image of a city (here could come also the question: "image buildings or building images?"). Do you see or agree with this distinction between branding and concepting? NB: Honestly, I ignore how the concepting term is used in the context of the marketing but since all cities have multiple images and representations circulating, and the most potent of them are produced from the top, is very interesting to focus the attention toward those that are built from the base. My opinion is that that bottom up produced images and representations would be even able to redirect the political objectives. It would only be necessary also to clarify here, what or who is included in the "bottom up" approach. FVB: is branding top down? Moreover, are cultural concepts bottom up? Or is branding a bottom up cultural strategy? JLG: Branding vs. concepting. My initial reaction is yes, there would be a distinction but I think a better term is out there for a bottom-up sensibility of place. Concepting (which has grammatical issues) still implies that a concept, an idea, an image or something of the like would be invented--this is much different from an area developing a collective memory of events that would serve to characterize its landscape and buildings and,

61 Dr. Jose Gamez, PhD, University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Assistant Professor College of Architecture University of North Carolina, Charlotte 62 Berci Florian is a senior consultant and concept developer for EXP in NAARDEN, an agency that specializes in concepts and visions in the field of experimental communication and spatial communication projects. He is responsible for the activities in public space

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

thereby, lend it an image or brand as an outgrowth of cultural patterns, use, etc. BF: I think you are making good sense. If you are aim is to explore a bottom-up strategy, I think you will be better off not to be associated with a discipline that is traditionally considered top-down. Although, I still think branding nowadays ought to be a bottom-up discipline, and neither can guarantee that you will not run into people who will consider concepting as a top-down strategy too. So I would suggest merely hanging on to ‘bottom-up’. Are there any phenomena of city branding in history you would like to highlight? Do you know the case of Barcelona? What do you think? NB: With the case of Barcelona in mind, the elements that have been used in the last decades with more force have been: in a first phase, the public spaces (thanks to the creation or renovation policies of the years 80 that so much international echo had); in those previous years to the Olympic Games of the 92, some buildings also obtained certain fame (Palau Sant Jordi of Isozaki, Tower of communications of Foster) but it has been in the last years when the "the famous architect's fever" has been unchained: Nouvel, Gehry, Herzog, Zaha Hadid... The “collection of trophies" that should gather each city to be competitive (in the past it was, the biggest stadium in the world, the best waterfront, the biggest aquarium etc.) it has become now a "collection of names". At the same time, in the case of Barcelona we can highlight how the use of its historical-cultural patrimony has not ceased as a distinction element regarding other cities (Gaudí, the modernism, the historical city...) Although it is focused clearly to promote the tourism, I believe that it is an important and much consolidated part of the general image of the city. FVB: Monuments of war and sport events - from the ancient Greece to now. I am not too familiar with Barcelona - Olympics, political regionalism? JLG: My own work focuses upon moments of place-image production in Los Angeles and place-based imagery in Las Vegas. Both seem related to your work but not central. We can discuss my work later if you like. The most common phenomenon in recent time has been associated with arts districts and gentrification. This would be the Soho model (i.e. Loft Living/Zukin). Most urban centres in the US seemed to try to reinvent themselves over the past 20’s with Soho in mind and that pattern of arts district development has been successful, as it tends to build upon patterns that precede a branding process. The other would be the Bilbao effect. Barcelona is a well-known case but it has several hundred years of architecture and urban fabric to build upon. It is relatively easy to brand a city like Barcelona and, in some ways, that city does not need a brand.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

BF: Not that I know of, at least not in the way that we are considering it, as a bottom-up strategy. If you run into some interesting projects I would be most interested to hear from you. I myself have been experimenting with it a lot in the past few years. But unfortunately, my experience is that politicians and developers love it as long as they need public support. They just (ab)use it to motivate singular plans in a plural way, and get rid of it as soon as the support has been given. I’m not familiar with the case. Could you forward me some links or information about this development? I’ll make up my mind and let you know later okay? Architecture as an operational tool for branding cities: Which would be the basic elements to describe e.g. corporate architecture, skyscrapers, open or public buildings and spaces, historical architectural landmarks, etc that you could set? FVB: the basic element of city branding is cultural. Branding is about cultural images. Actually, architecture seems to be the only element - or the only visible element - that could be shaped and planned by the economic driven sectors. This is why architecture is such a prominent tool in city marketing. But intelligent branding of a city would not start with buildings, but with culture. Offer 200 artist in residence programs per year for a ten year period - perfect urban branding... JLG: Branding seems to be most effective when combined with two particular types of buildings when dealing with urban image: cultural buildings (like museums) and historic buildings (historic districts, former warehouse districts, etc.) Corporate architecture does not really fit into the picture as it cannot be sold as a public amenity and cities often do not have control over corporate images beyond the typical skyline images of cities. BF: My idea is that, in city-branding or urban concepting around new or existing urban identities all factors should be included that influence the development of an urban identity. People, organisations, their values, individually, collectively, mentality, rules, possibilities, program, form, structure, design, architecture, sound, visibility, smell et cetera. Ideally all should be set to support and facilitate the creativity and cultural growth of the people and organisations participating in it. What does branding mean for improving conditions for urban life? NB: In accordance with my vision of branding, a symptom of success of the strategy would be the attraction of investments and of visitors. This requires to endow the city with some facilities among those is the improvement of their public space, of their cultural infrastructures, etc. In that sense, yes it supposes an improvement of the quality of the urban space although

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

not necessarily of the conditions of life of their inhabitants. FVB: that depends on the branding strategy. If you talk about the city branding real estate investors are talking about, than the result are higher

rentals, more profit for

owners and a process of gentrification - the middle class will love it.... JLG: This is the big question. Branding is often the sign that gentrification has set in and this can be either good or bad depending upon which side of the table you happen to sit. BF: I believe that the world is transforming from a less federal society into a multicultural society. Most of this is taking place in cities all over the world. One of the challenges in improving urban life, the coming 20 or 30 years, will be to facilitate the development of creative and inclusive urban societies. It is impossible to do this top-down. You can’t simply tell or order anybody to be inclusive or creative. What you can do is explore the inclusiveness within existing social, cultural and economic networks and facilitate their evolution. I believe bottom-up branding could play an important role in this. But to be honest I’m not too confident current producers will let it. How can we use "branding", for the benefit of whom? NB: It is always pointed out, that the policies of attraction of investments go in benefit of all because they reboot the economy, they generate workplaces, etc. If we use branding in a sense different to that of the mere economic promotion, it could be used to offer alternative readings of the urban spaces; even of the city like a whole in less interested way of the habitual one (the city like a whole can hide the existence of different situations, different interests, and different types of citizens...) FVB: see above - it depends on your branding strategy ... if you work with architecture, investors and owners will benefit, if you work with "soft factors", other groups will benefit first, and the real estate people will benefit a bit later. JLG: for civic bureaucracies, developers, corporations. BF: Bottom-up branding and creative urban concepting anticipates on collective cultural growth. The addressed society will benefit from it. Unfortunately, this is also, why it is not very likely that we’ll be able to generate too many good cases, considering that developers, investors, politicians and other producers will primarily focus on their own benefit. In your opinion which is the potential of architecture for being an operational branding tool to develop and transform the city? NB: I think it would be interesting to differ among isolated buildings (that always tend to symbolize more concrete values) from architectural groups that can contain a bigger discursive richness. For example, historical groups, industrial neighbourhoods... It would be interesting to change the image of more stigmatized neighbourhoods without

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

carrying with it a change in their economic and social base (for example, thinking of the case of the Raval or the Born neighbourhoods in Barcelona, or in areas with complex and contradictory processes what we can call gentrification. This one is that transforms the image of degraded and poor neighbourhood into fashion, multicultural and modern neighbourhood, with cultural activity. I think that intervening in the negative image would contribute to avoid so deep and irreversible changes in the character and composition of the neighbourhoods. Other remarkable cases would be examples of not very attractive architectural areas (labour housings of the 60’s and 70’s), but that are examples of socially cohesive neighbourhoods, with great civic activity, etc., although they have an image of labour neighbourhood without urban qualities. Maybe some architectural interventions, besides a promotion of the existent positive values, would be able to enhance the positive image, to intervene in the improvement and to avoid that, in a future; these areas will pass to be part of the reservation of spaces to renovate in order to obtain bigger economic profitability of them. JLG: Only on rare occasions can architecture transform a city. Bilbao and Gehry's building were exceptions. This has not stopped cities from trying to replicate what happened

Bilbao

but

the

odds

are

against

that

phenomenon

happening

again. Architecture can help with the improvement of a civic image if the building in question is a public amenity but this is a more localized condition. BF: I consider bottom-up branding and urban development fundamentally as a cultural act. Architecture is and has always played an important role in expressing cultural values.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Bibliography “Urbanism, culture and the post-industrial city: challenging the ‘Barcelona Model’”. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Vol 2, n. 2, 2001, 187-210. 41st International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISoCaRP) Congress 2005 | Making Spaces for the Creative Economy http://www.isocarp.org/pub/events/congress/2005/index.html Ajuntament de Barcelona, Institut de Cultura. BCN http://www.barcelonaplato.bcn.es/html2/es/quees.html

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Ajuntament de Barcelona, Institut de Cultura. Plan Estratégico del sector cultural de la ciudad(en línea). http://www.bcn.es/accentcultura/cast/index.html Almodóvar, Pedro (director). Todo sobre mi madre (Película). El Deseo, 1999. Andreotti, Libero y Xavier Costa (eds). Theory of the Dérive and other situationist writings on the city. Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona/ACTAR: 1996. Ashworth, G. J. and H. VOOGD (1988). “Marketing the city. Concepts, processes and Dutch applications.” Town Planning Review 59(1): 65-79. Ashworth, Gregory; VOOGD, Henk (1991): Selling the City: marketing approaches in public sector urban planning, London and New York, Belhaven Press. Balibrea, Mari Paz. “Descubrir Mediterráneos. La re-significación del mar en la Barcelona post-industrial. Fundació Antoni Tàpies. Tourismes. Barcelona, Marca Registrada. Un model per desarmar. Barcelona: Virus, 2004: 13-26. Barcelona: Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 1996: 280-289. Begg, I (ed.) (2002) Urban competitiveness. Bristol: The Policy Press. Benach, Nuria (1997): Ciutat i Producció d’imatge: Barcelona 1979-1992, Tesis Doctoral. Benjamin, Walter. “La obra de arte en la época de su reproductibilidad técnica”. Discursos interrumpidos I. Taurus: Madrid, 1973: 15-57. Borja, J and Castells, M (1997) Local and global. London: Earthscan. Borja, Jordi y Zaida Muxí (eds). L´espai públic: ciutat i ciutadania. Barcelona: Diputació de Barcelona, 2001. Borja, Jordi. “The Pace and Extent of Barcelona’s Urban Transformation”. Borja-Villel, Manuel, Jean-Francois Chevrier y Craigie Horsfield (eds). La ciutat de la gent. Castells, M (1996) The power of identity. London: Blackwell. Castells, M (1996) The rise of the network society. London: Blackwell.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Cooke, P. (1990). “Modern urban theory in question.” Transactions Institute of British Geographers N.S.(15): 331-343. De Landa, M (2000). One Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. New York: Swerve Editions. Deas, I, and Giordano, B (2002) Locating the competitive city in England. In Begg, I (ed.) Urban competitiveness. Bristol: The Policy Press. Debord, Guy (1992). La Societé du Spectacle, Paris, Gallimard. Delgado, Manuel. “Ciudades de mentira. El turismo cultural como estrategia de desactivación urbana”. Fundació Antoni Tàpies. Tourismes. Espai en Blanc (AA.VV.) “Barcelona 2004: El fascismo posmoderno” en AAVV. La otra cara del Fòrum de les Cultures S.A.. Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2004: 15-78. García, Beatriz. “Urban regeneration, arts programming and major events”. International Journal of Cultural Policy. Vol 10, n. 1, 2004, 103-118. Gay, Cesc (director). En la ciudad. (Película). Messidor Films, 2003. Gibson, Lisanne y Deborah Stevenson. “Urban space and the uses of culture”. International Journal of Cultural Policy. Vol 10, n. 1, 2004, 1-4. Guerín, José Luis (director). En construcción [Película DVD], Barcelona: Ovideo, 2002. Guillamón, Julià. La ciutat interrompuda. Barcelona: Edicions La Magrana, 2001. Harvey, D. (1989). “From managerialism to entrepreneuralism: The tranformation in urban governance in late capitalism.” Geografiska Annaler 71B(1): 3-17. Harvey, David (1993): “From space to place and back again: reflections on the conditions of postmodernity”. In BIRD, J. et al: Mapping the future: local cultures, global change, London, Routledge, pp.3-29. Hauben, H, Vermeulem, M, Patteuw, V. (2002) City branding. Rotterdam: Nai. Heeren, Stefanie von, La remodelación de Ciutat Vella. Un análisis crítico del modelo Barcelona. Barcelona: Veins en defensa de la Barcelona Vella, 2002. Jansson, André. “The Negotiated City Image: Symbolic Reproduction and Change through Urban Consumption”. Urban Studies, Vol. 40, n.3 (2003): 463-479. Kearns G. y C. Philo. “Culture, History, Capital: A Critical Introduction to the Selling of Places” en G. Kearns y C. Philo. Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present. London: Pergamon, 1993. Kearns, Gerry & PHILO, Chris (1993): Selling Places. The City as Cultural Capital Klapisch, Cedric (director). Una casa de locos [L’auberge espagnole] (Película, DVD). Filmax, 2002. Leach, Neal. The Anaesthetics of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachussets: MIT Press, 1999. Lefebvre, Henri. (1974): La production de l’espace, Paris, Anthropos.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Maldo, Teo. “Barcelona en la glocalització” en PePa (coords). Maragall i Mira, Alcalde de Barcelona. Barcelona, Ajuntament de Barcelona. Maragall, P. (1991). Barcelona, la ciutat retrobada. Barcelona, Edicions 62. Maragall, P. (1991). L'estat de la ciutat 1983-1990. Discursos de balanç d'any de Pasqual Marshall, Tim. “Urban Planning and Governance: Is there a Barcelona Model”. International Planning Studies, Vol. 5, n.3, (2000): 299-319. Montaner, Josep Maria. “La evolución del modelo Barcelona”. En Borja, Jordi y Zaida Muxí (eds) Urbanismo en el siglo XXI: Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona. Barcelona: Edicions UPC, 2004: 2003-220. Panagruel, Homerio. “Cultura-mercaderia i populisme cultural per a turistes i “parroquians-clients”” en PePa (coords) . Barcelona, Marca Registrada. Un model per desarmar. Barcelona: Virus, 2004: 167-177. PePa (coords) . Barcelona, Marca Registrada. Un model per desarmar. Barcelona: Virus, 2004. (en línea) www.barcelonamarcaregistrada.com Richards, Greg y Julie Wilson. “The Impact of Cultural Events on City Image: Rotterdam, Cultural Capital of Europe 2001”. Urban Studies, Vol 41, 310, September 2004: 1931-1951. Roca i Albert, Joan. “El itinerario como forma artística, la ciudad y la ciudadanía”. Fundació Antoni Tàpies. Tour-ismes. La derrota de la dissensió. Itineraris Crítics. Barcelona: Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 2004: 381-388. Sanchez, Fernanda (1997): Cidade Espetáculo: Política, Planejamento e City Marketing, Curitiba, Palavra. Sassen, S (2004) Lecture at the Barcelona Forum 2004. Recorded by the COAC. Seidelman, Susan (diretor). Gaudi Afternoon. (Película) Lolafilms, 2000. Soja, E (2000). Postmetropolis. Oxford: Blackwell. Soja, Edward (1993): Geografias pós-modernas: a reafirmação do espaço na teoria social crítica, Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Zahar Editor. Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1996 Stillman, Whit (director). Barcelona. (Película). Castle Rock Entertainment, 1994. Tafuri, Manfredo. Architecture and Utopia. Design and Capitalist Development. Cambridge, Massachussets: MIT Press, 1976. Tercer Plà Estratègic Econòmic i Social de Barcelona en la perspective http://www.bcn2000.es/Usuarios/43B94/archivos/ZDE/III_pla.pdf Vazquez Montalban, M. (1989) “La paraula lliure a la ciutat lliure.” Barcelona, metropolis mediterrània(13): 130-131.

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Index of Images Figure 1: New European Union flag proposal designed by Rem Koolhaas...................7 Figure 2: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao - Paris Hotel in Las Vegas - Times Square skyline ...............................................................................................................7 Figure 3: Amsterdam campaign promotion inside and outside the City .....................9 Figure 4: London Slogan for the Olympic Games 2012 ...........................................9 Figure 5: Concepting reverse the process. Source: Jan Rijkenberg’s Theory ............ 13 Figure 6: Concepting book and theory from Jan Rijkenberg .................................. 13 Figure 7: NYC Photographic Installation 2002 ..................................................... 15 Figure 8: Disneyland and Time square - Anna Klingman’s Book: Beyond Architecture: ............................................................................................................. 16 Figure 9: Park & Water Tratment Plant at the Forum BCN ..................................... 19 Figure 10: Park and Bike Trails at Monjuic BCN ................................................... 20 Figure 11: Las Vegas Covered Passage - NYC Graoun Zero Skyline Proposal............ 23 Figure 12: Harvard Architecture School Poster Seminar........................................ 23 Figure 13: “The Eiffel Tower and its successors” – Medieval Towers San Geminiano, Italy Petronas Tower – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.................................................... 24 Figure 14: Aerial View from Av. Diagonal 2004 ................................................... 26 Figure 15: [L] Interior Hotel near Agbar Tower [R] Fundacion Caixa Forum Source: Personal File ........................................................................................... 27 Figure 16 Coastal zone of Barcelona, 1999 ......................................................... 29 Figure 17: BCN Grow of Non Commercial Tertiary sqm ......................................... 30 Figure 18: BCN Evolution of different sectors of activity ....................................... 31 Figure 19: BCN Evolution of the Hotels .............................................................. 32 Figure 20: Todo sobre mi madre, Almodóvar, 1999 .............................................. 34 Figure 21: Gaudi Heritage was completely restored ............................................. 37 Figure 22: Renovation from buiding in the Old District ......................................... 37 Figure 23: MACBA, R. Meier ............................................................................. 38 Figure 24: Campaign logo: Barcelona posa't guapa [Let's embellish Barcelona] ....... 45 Figure 25: Special processing: Colour................................................................ 45 Figure 26: Special processing: graffitos ............................................................. 45 Figure 27: Special processing: Trompe l’oeil murals ............................................. 46 Figure 28: Special processing: Recovering details................................................ 46 Figure 29: Statistical Info about the program. Source: The Institute of Urban Landscape and Quality of Life.................................................................................... 46 Figure 30: Location of the four areas where the main Olympic interventions for 1992 were sited. Source: Orio Bohigas, Imagen de Barcelona 1992 ........................ 48

City branding | Concepting processes Architecture as an operational tool [the case of Barcelona]

Figure 31: Organization of the Olympic Villa, Seafront and Park. Source: Oriol Bohigas, Imagen de Barcelona 1992........................................................................ 48 Figure 32: Aerial view of Olympic Port and its surroundings. ................................. 49 Figure 33: Beaches and Seaport Promenade....................................................... 50 Figure 34: urban furniture at the beach and seaport promenade ........................... 50 Figure 35: Recover of the waterfront for leisure activities ..................................... 51 Figure 36: Connection between Olympic Ring (Montjuic) and the Olympic Village (Nova Icaria) with a system of highways and parks................................................ 51 Figure 37: Aerial views over the Port and Sport facilities at Montjuic ...................... 52 Figure 38: Sport facilities on the hill of Montjuic.................................................. 52 Figure 39: Forum Master Plan .......................................................................... 53 Figure 40: Diagonal Mar and Forum Area ........................................................... 54 Figure 41: Forum Building – Herzog & DeMeuron ................................................ 54 Figure 42: Conference Center _ Jose luis Mateo Source: Urbanisme de Barcelona .... 54 Figure 43: SouthEast Coastal Park_ FOA ............................................................ 55 Figure 44: Coastal Park Development Source: Ajuntament Barcelona..................... 55 Figure 45: Plan showing the close location of the depressed neighborhood of La Mina with The Diagonal and Forum new development.................................................. 57 Figure 46: Housing Developments at La Mina and new housing developments at Diagonal Mar........................................................................................................ 57 Figure 47: Location of this new typology of housing around the Forum Area............ 58 Figure 48: Some graffiti in the center of Barcelona, manifesting social inequities about the use of spaces. Source: Personal Research .............................................. 59 Figure 49: Neighbors, civic associations using very creative ways to demonstrate against the urban speculation. This flyer is organizing spontaneous constructions in public spaces like metro entrances, trees, etc ....................................................... 59 Figure 50: BCN Housing prices evolution............................................................ 60 Figure 51b: BCN Population evolution ................................................................ 61