One of the problems of poor historical fit of Glòries in Barcelona is that the burial of railway trackswhich was the main impediment to giving human form to the square, coincided with the car boom. And from the railway infrastructure to the road infrastructure, without stopping for the pedestrian box. For the 92 Gamesthe city council’s urban thinkers devised the aerial drum which intended to generate an interior park at ground level. It never worked. Three decades later, the cars are still the protagonists, but now at least, although they are the same as always, they are not seen thanks to the tunnel that goes in and out. The gallery hides them from Castillejos to the Rambla del Poblenou, which has generated a open space of 12 hectares. Action has already been taken in the western part of the square, with the grand esplanade as protagonist. Now it is time to reshape the space occupied by the continuity of Gran Via in its clash with Meridiana and Diagonal. The works will begin at the end of the year, and after 20 months, in the second half of 2024, the Glòries, waiting for facilities and buildings of housing, it will be, or that is the idea, a definitive square.
The proposal Urban Canopy In 2014, he won the public tender called by the consistory, then led by Xavier Trias. The project was agreed in 2007 in times of Jordi Hereubut with Joan Clos when the reform of the square entered the public plans by being incorporated into the municipal action plan. Ada Colau It will be the mayor who will execute it. That is to say, that Glòries, if everything ends as planned, will be one of those very few projects that the governments have respected and continued as planned, as is the case with the library plan or the management of popular festivals from Barcelona.
active mobility
The cost of the project, approved in the government committee this week, amounts to 26.4 million euros and it is planned to act on 4.3 hectares of surface, in which 472 trees will be planted. To put on the map what is to come, the works will be carried out between the large esplanade, open to the public in September 2021, and the tram tracks, on which work is already being done to connect the Tram Since last March, in a first phase, from Glòries to Verdaguer. For later, already in the next term and provided that the outgoing government of the May 2023 elections approves it, address the second leg until the Francesc Macia Square. The objective of the transformation, after 100 years of domination by the railway and 60 by the car, is that it finally be the active mobility (on foot and by bicycle) the protagonist of the space. But not only that. The square will offer all kinds of leisure elements, from culture to simple contemplation. Because now, in the square, an unusual phenomenon is happening three months ago: silence.
“For the first time we will be able to see the magnitude and dimension of the future Parque de las Glòries. Finally, we will be able to contemplate the transformation of a space with a vocation for centrality, just as designed Ildefons Cerdà“, points out Xavier Matilla, chief architect of the Barcelona City Council. The Ensanche de Barcelona plan designed in 1859 by the brilliant urban planner turned the square into the epicenter of Barcelona, from Besòs to Montjuïc. But the C-32 motorway entered Glòries and there was a feeling that the city began here, and not 3.5 kilometers beyond, when Sant Martí marida with Sant Adrià and Besòs.
The values
According to Matilla, the new design gives the square new potentialsnew values: “The encounter value after decades of segregated neighborhoods and separated; the environmental valuewith 9,000 square meters of new green, and the social value“, linked to everything that can house in the future, for any age segment, the spaces that will be created with the reform of the environment. Everything, with a Diagonal that will continue to cross the square with a concrete block floor that will give continuity to those who go on foot and by bike but it will not allow the passage of cars and motorcycles. Along this promenade an ornamental fountain of 70 meters in length will be installed, a “sheet of water that will reflect nature and the sky”.
Below the avenue, next to the Rambla de los Encants, will be the sensory agora Berta Cáceresa space of 1,000mtwo for multipurpose use surrounded by a crown of giant bamboos and designed to host cultural events. Just below there will be a second area for dogs of 760mtwo. And next to him plunge garden, a small forest of cacti at different heights that will act, at the same time, as the entrance and exit of the Glòries metro station. It will not be an accessible space for people with reduced mobility, who, instead, will have access to the underground through an elevator located very close to here. The accessibilityMatilla points out, it has been guaranteed in the new children’s play area (known as dynamic node), with different heights and an area of almost 2,000mtwo. According to Ana Coelloone of the architects responsible for the project, the design of the square is intended “to very different usesso that all profiles of society have a specific space”. That includes, as is obvious in these times, pets.
Botanical Garden
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Other elements will be a water play area designed for the summer, a huge viewpoint just above the entrance to the Glòries tunnel, with stands and green space with views of Gran Via, and an underground parking lot for bikes that will be installed in one of the four large underground spaces that have been freed up with the construction of the road tunnel (a second space will be used for storage and changing rooms for the sensory agora). Areas will also be set up for enhance biodiversity vegetable and animal of the city.
In these spaces there will be no plant species that exceeds 15% of the surface. That is, a small botanical garden in the largest square of the Catalan capital. Everything, with water management that is expected to be self-sufficient. Once the works are finished, in the second half of 2024, Barcelona will have won a nine hectare park in which more than thousand trees and 30,000 square meters of green will be generated. However, a reasonable amount of time will be necessary, once the work is finished, for the shade and thick vegetation to reach their climax. And it will also be necessary to complete the planned real estate park, which includes, among others, buildings of private and social housing and a school.