Plaça de les Glòries has been one of the most transformed spaces in Barcelona in recent years; many still remember that ring road dubbed “scalextric”, built for the Olympic Games and demolished in 2014. Ildefons Cerdà ‘s will was to project a new centrality in this area of ​​the city which since yesterday and for ten days becomes a stage for urban experimentation with the second edition of the Model architecture festival, one of the outstanding initiatives to celebrate Unesco’s world capital of architecture in 2026.
The contest brings together proposals from local and international architects with a series of temporary installations that try to reflect on the public space of the future and trace different urban imaginaries.
“The structures invite us to rethink how we want to live together on important issues that are part of our daily lives, from air quality to access to water or the production of new common spaces”, he emphasized yesterday Eva Franch, the artistic director of the festival, promoted by Barcelona City Council and managed this year through the Mies van der Rohe Foundation.
Five ephemeral installations created for the occasion have been incorporated into a Plaça de les Glòries, raised by the works. Thus, in the Gran Clariana of the park, a temporary pavilion has been erected presided over by an ancient sculpture of the goddess Minerva, the work of the sculptor Salvador Gurri, which apparently was part of a missing fountain in Plaça del Teatre from the Rambla. Its current home is a municipal warehouse until it is restored.
You can also see water tanks or the controversial New Jersey concrete blocks, placed on top of each other and repainted in a metallic color instead of their characteristic yellow. “Instead of extracting new materials we have used pieces that between projects are in municipal warehouses unused and then can be returned without creating a carbon footprint”, explained the architect Carla Ferrando, from the studio Parabase, who with the Kosmos team have designed this facility.
On the other side of the park, the roof of a B:SM car park has been conditioned to be a bee house through mushrooms that form honeycombs in which the pollinating insects can find shelter. “This morning we already saw a few bees! Big cities can be centers of biodiversity”, claimed the author of the project, American architect Ariane Harrison.
The work of architect Daryan Knoblauch, who specializes in technology, performing arts and nature, also has a look with an environmental background as a guiding thread. Located in Plaça Josep Antoni Coderch, next to the Barcelona Design Museum (DHUB), there are panels that measure the city’s air pollution and a kind of large funnel is ready to catch water in case of ‘a necessary rain.
Another installation, located on the side of the Gran Via, addresses the issue of care. With the name Mammal. Collective breastfeeding point, a wooden structure for those mothers who want to breastfeed their children in “a safe and pleasant public space”, as pointed out by the architect Raquel Marcos of the Equal Saree studio , who designed this prototype.
And finally, one of the already emblematic buildings of the city, the Mercat dels Encants, houses modules built with pieces sold in the same area, from furniture legs to carpets. The installation, designed by Barcelona architecture studio h3o Architects, aims to be a meeting space and also functions as a bookshelf. Coinciding with Sant Jordi, this facility will host a book fair on architecture in a day with debates and presentations.
On the other hand, augmented reality will be present once again with virtual projects through QR codes and participatory initiatives such as the creation of a digital archive of neighborhood protests and other claims on the -1 floor of the DHUB.
At the same time, routes, visits to private libraries, talks and debates will be organized that will delve into topics related to architecture, town planning, landscaping, design and other disciplines.
Once again, Barcelona becomes a laboratory for architectural experimentation.
