The FAVB has made strong objections against the modification of the General Metropolitan Plan (PGM) for the future Thyssen Museum, and reading them has made me think about the grand ideas that have governed the construction of Barcelona as a compact city. Cities are ideas, some conceived decades ago, that urban plans preserve or alter, even if they don't please everyone.
The first grand idea that has governed the construction of Barcelona one hundred years after the Cerdà Plan was that a good balance between housing and facilities or parks was necessary. Culturally, we know how to live more crowded than most Europeans, but we can only tolerate it if we have a good network of markets, libraries, health centers, museums, and parks close to home. Thus, while the 1953 Regional Plan reserved 30% of urban land for public use and 70% for private use, the 1976 General Metropolitan Plan made the ambitious effort to reserve 60% for public use and limit private use to 40% of the surface area. To this end, the General Metropolitan Plan (PMGM) carried out bold operations, such as reserving entire islands for "transformation zones": spaces where there were more or less obsolete industries to relocate to make way for more parks or facilities. These were operations with high costs, but their future social benefits were assessed.
If we analyze the streets that intersect at the Comedia intersection, it is easy to see that Passeig de Gràcia only has two areas designated for facilities: the Palau Robert and the Comedia. And the same can be said of Gran Via, which, in addition to the Comedia, includes the Coliseum, the UB, and an administrative building, which are the only designated areas for use as amenities between Urgell and Tetuán, and practically all the way to Les Glòries. So the question is: how can we preserve the city's open amenities and compensate for the high residential densities in the Eixample? Consolidating commercial use on such a unique plot of land does nothing to support the policy of limiting private land uses in Ciutat Vella and the Eixample, which has been in place since 1976. This is especially critical on a plot reserved for amenities.
The second major obsession of the Metropolitan General Plan was to reduce densities in the center and increase them in the metropolitan area. If in 1976 the average density in Barcelona was 262 inhabitants/ha, it dropped to 111 inhabitants/ha in metropolitan cities. Thousands of plots in Barcelona have been and will have to be built, losing height when the current structures are demolished, because the spirit of the General Metropolitan Plan (GM) was from its genesis to reduce densities in the Eixample and Ciutat Vella, and in any case to encourage increases in density in remote areas.
Urban planning can be stretched like chewing gum, and it is desirable for it to be flexible, but it cannot contradict the purposes of the current plans, which have been striving for years to improve the quality of life, even to the detriment of the interests of the owners of the plots. In other words, new urban projects cannot ignore existing buildings and must ensure compliance with the general objectives in each location. In Solans's words, "the city is not what results from cramming lots full of houses, and, moreover, built to the maximum permitted height." I couldn't agree more; creating a city is more complex than systematically growing in height. And if there is growth at a certain point, it will have to be to free up space around it and gain public spaces at the neighborhood level.
Another more recent idea in the Eixample was the new designation of 13 Eixample (13E), an invention of the 2000s. This new designation was invented so that the central space within the block cannot be built on and must be used as a privately owned open garden space. Existing buildings are being subjected to a kind of "transitional regime" that, in the long term, will entail the demolition of buildings and the eradication of the activities that currently occupy the block interiors (see, for example, the delightful transformation of the Palau Macaya block).
Here, then, there would also be scope to ask the transformation of the Comedia to make some significant openings on the ground or first floor, loosening its surroundings to reveal the galleries and courtyards of the entire block.
The urban project for the Comedia has an important heritage component (the preservation of the Palau Marcet), but it is also a very unique intersection in the city, where it would be advisable to take into account major issues such as the role of facilities in the city and the gradual restoration of block interiors to maintain a good balance in a dense and desirable neighborhood like the Eixample. Because whatever is agreed upon regarding urban transformation will undoubtedly set a precedent for many other urban decisions in the future.
