Francesc Magrinyà: "Cerdà would propose extending the green axes throughout the city"

BarcelonaFrancesc Magrinyà (Barcelona, 1963) is a civil engineer and the country's leading expert on Ildefons Cerdà. A figure about whom, he says, an incomplete narrative has been imposed for years. To try to overturn it and coinciding with the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death, he has just published the book Teoría Cerdà (Polytechnic University of Catalonia), a monumental work that brings closer the work, but also the thought, the environment and the history of the creator of the Eixample. Magrinyà is also the curator of an exhibition on Cerdà that will be on view soon in Centelles, Barcelona and Madrid.

Was he indebted to Cerdà?

— When the first National Congress of Urbanism was held in 1959, it became evident that there were only three or four planned cities in the world like Barcelona. From then on, the object of the Eixample was highly valued and extensively analyzed, but the problem was that it was done disconnected from the person. This vision of disseminating Cerdà's thought was somewhat lacking.

One of the stigmas is that Cerdà's Eixample is a project imposed by Madrid.

— What is not said is that those from Madrid were Catalans at the time. The moment when the Catalans had the most presence in Spain was the Revolutionary Sexennium. There is a generation where there is Cerdà, Pascual Madoz –Navarrese, but deputy for Lleida for many years– and Laureà Figuerola, who are people who move in Freemasonry and who have the ambition to transform society. It is a generation of Catalans linked to the project of modernizing Spain. These characters are sidelined because, according to the League's narrative, this does not fit.

Milà i Fontanals or Puig i Cadafalch are fierce detractors of Cerdà.

— Pau Milà i Fontanals dedicated himself to discrediting Cerdà. In the case of Puig i Cadafalch, he experiences the frustration of not being able to build in the Eixample of bourgeois Barcelona. The international project, for which he commissions Jaussely to create large boulevards in the Eixample in the style of Paris, is never applied because what remains in force is Cerdà's grid. Puig i Cadafalch takes this very badly.

Is there a kind of crusade by architects against Cerdà?

— Before, it was military engineers and architects who decided on the city. In 1851, however, the Ministry of Development was created, which was entirely controlled by engineers and which, from 1858 to 1868, defined the city's planning. For architects, it was as if the city's design was kidnapped from them for a decade.

They are not taking it well.

— Cerdà is a mechanist. He plays Tetris and the modernists want to make art. They are two oppositions in urbanism. Then there is also the criticism of the bourgeoisie.

Why?

— Because he couldn't build a little house with a garden as he would have liked, but instead has placed it in this grid structure.

What makes L'Eixample innovative?

— It is the first modern treaty of world urbanism. Cerdà designs the minimum unit of housing: housing as the first founding element of urbanization and services as the cause of this urbanization, because people gather because they have services. It establishes instruments such as the grid, which separates the space of independence from the space of mobility. And another thing is that he creates the replotting system.

It is surprising that he, who never knew cars, is thinking of streets 20 meters wide.

— At that time the widest street in the old town was Carrer Ample, which was 12 metres. He specifies that a minimum street should have 20. He believes that the locomotive will eventually be urbanized, and he wants to prepare the city so that this transport coexists with the cart, the diligence, and the pedestrian.

Some people say that the green axes are a betrayal to Cerdà's Eixample.

— Those who say that Cerdà's is the city of the car are not followers of Cerdà. Because he doesn't commit to a form, he commits to principles. And the principles are that each transport node has its space. He wanted to urbanize the rural and ruralize the urban, and this implied introducing green into the city. I believe that today Cerdà would propose extending the network of green axes throughout the city.

What else would Cerdà do today?

— Cerdà would again raise his principles to today's agenda. Therefore, what I would say is that we create legislation so that there is housing. Because the primary need for urbanization is to have housing. In summary: reorganize the housing system and make it accessible; reorganize transportation and make it accessible, and have access to green spaces.

Would density increase in the Eixample?

— It is a mistake to continue growing. We must reorganize the city, not on a municipal scale but on a metropolitan or regional scale. And from here we will create a policy for this territory. We must rebuild upon what already exists. Before, it was subdivision to expand; now, we must make contributions to reorder spaces and provide the minimums necessary for good coexistence, to have housing, and to have facilities distributed fractally – another of Cerdà's great contributions – with communication systems. If Barcelona is today one of the important cities in Europe, it is because it has the Eixample, which ensures there is commerce, there are workshops, and there is residence.

Is this at risk?

— I believe that the Eixample is at the end of an era. Extractive and dispossession policies jeopardize the minimum conditions for quality of life, which are good insulation and good connectivity with amenities, from continuing to be provided. Today, housing has become a commodity. This is what destabilizes cities around the world.