Oriol Bohigas: 100 years old
This Saturday, December 20th, Oriol Bohigas would have turned 100. He died at 95. Barcelona, overwhelmed by its own success, is largely his fault. He was the mastermind behind its urban transformation. The city's over-tourism would have exasperated him. He would have rolled up his sleeves to change its course once again.
He wanted a civic, cultured, and creative city. He carried in his blood the Catalan and French-influenced republican ideal, with an undisguised touch of enlightened despotism: he was more about liberty and fraternity than equality. He linked Cerdà (the ambition of rational and progressive urban planning), Modernisme (the groundbreaking and transformative bohemianism of the Renaixença), Noucentisme (cultural institutionalization), and the avant-garde (aesthetic modernity). He looked to the past with historical awareness to transform the present with social awareness and project its future with global ambition. With boundless energy and intellectual and executive leadership, he managed to unite thought and action on the ground, in a Barcelona he envisioned as both Catalan and cosmopolitan.
Dialectical, seductive, and determined, he was a fighter with a white glove and a striking tie, a man of sharp wit. More of an office worker than a man of the streets, he was also a fabulous hedonist: whiskey and cigars, piano, after-dinner conversation, long nights... But the next day he was up early. Charismatic and authoritative, he knew how to listen: until he synthesized and decided. When he wanted, he could be cruel and hurtful. He spoke unfiltered truths, even to the point of insult. And at the same time, often with an unexpected turn of sympathy, he would end up becoming friends with his supposed enemies. Because above all, he respected intelligence.
More than a man of consensus, he was a man of synthesis, a great polemical strategist. Gifted with a remarkable memory and erudition, and a far-reaching vision, he connected past and future. He became a leading figure for decades. Listened to and feared. Demanding and respected. He was the driving force. With his contagious enthusiasm and vitality, with talent and vast curiosity, with international connections, he elevated the city and the country. He raised the bar for collective excellence. He gave up on nothing: his all-powerful drive was addictive.
Barcelona owes him a great deal. From the City Hall, first with Narcís Serra and later with Pasqual Maragall, he served as delegate and advisor for Urban Planning and as councilor for Culture. From a set of key institutions (the UPC School of Architecture, Fomento de las Artes Decorativas, Edicions 62, Fundació Miró, Fundació Tàpies, Ateneu Barcelonès), he breathed new life into the creative arts. Through his writing (his own books, articles in the mainstream press – especially in theTodaybut also in The Country and other media—, in architecture magazines—Bis Architectures, Lotus and others—and on other platforms such as Sierra de Oro), set the pace of political and cultural opinion. For more than half a century of anti-Francoism and democracy, it was involved in everything. It was the most visible Catalan nationalist face of the Gauche Divine.
Felipe González wanted him to be Minister of Culture, and Harvard wanted him to be Dean of Architecture, but he chose Barcelona, his great passion, his work, where he lost specific battles (like that of the Sagrada Familia) but won the overall battle of the city's transformation, the Barcelona of neighborhoods with identity, of... work and a passion in which friendship and work, professional and personal life, were intertwined. The metaphor is Plaça Reial: at one end, his private residence; at the other, his office. And up the Rambla, a ten-minute walk, the Ateneu Barcelonès, which he eventually presided over. That's how he ended his days. Beyond the inner circle of MBM, his friends were architects—from Federico Correa to Gae Aulenti, from Òscar Tusquets to Beth Galí—artists, designers, writers... The list would be long. The chapter on his love life would also fill pages.
Who leads urban planning in Barcelona today? Who envisions and imagines a new future for it? Who defends its civic and cultural pulse? That's why we miss it.