The redevelopment of the north end of The Diagonal was very much in the Barcelona tradition: Have a big event – International Exhibitions in 1888 and 1929, the Olympics in 1992 – and rebuild big chunks of the town while you’re at it.
The decaying industrial area of Poblenou was the opportunity after the Summer Games and before the World Forum – proposed as a kind of cultural Olympics in 2004. The results are apparent in any panorama of the city.
Glòries can be easily spotted, anchored by the Agbar Tower (centre right), looking suggestive as ever:
.
Running to the left is a long line of mid-rise blocks, creating a streetwall corridor all the way to the next cluster of towers, known generally as Diagonal Mar.
.
.
Some of it is very good indeed. Around Glòries, The Diagonal looks like this:
.
These are great streets – some of the world’s best. Barcelona knows how to do Ramblas.
You might even make out the tram behind the trees on the right, on its own grass right-of-way. Further down The Diagonal, it looks like this:
.
.
But the area at its northeasterly end … not so great. The urban design of its public spaces and rights-of-way ranges from the mundane to the mysterious.
.
.
The mystery is why. Why would Barcelona do something so lifeless, so street unfriendly, given its traditions and the evidence of generations of city-building? Was it a rejection of this very past, the desire for novelty, the dictates of corporate developers, cost considerations, the rush to complete before the 2004 World Forum?
Barcelona is not unique in developing a section of the city to serve the needs of multinationals, to allow a place for highrise towers, infrastructure to serve the automobile and internal malls: Paris has its La Defense, London its Canary Wharf, Vienna its Danube City.
And Barcelona its Diagonal Mar.
