Rereading Oriol Bohigas, I found in his diaries a reference to his time at the mythical Institut-Escola. He recounts an anecdote illustrating the civic spirit of that exemplary institution, which was meant to be the vanguard of republican educational change. The dictatorship destroyed it all. Damned authoritarian intolerance, which is returning... Educational optimism, tinged with an essential veil of naivety, remained buried for decades. But we must also return to it. Urgently.

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.