Extant Barcelona Part 2: Mapping
The built environment is the manifestation of the society that created it. There is no blank canvas, rather a city is built and rebuilt upon a fabric of choices made in contexts that no longer exist.
How is it possible to comprehend this complexity? Can we call the city we inhabit today a single city through time? Is a city knowable in this way?
Part I
The previous Extant post argued that it is possible to consider cities as social objects. As such we can use shared cultural capital to identify moments of symbiosis in their development.
Symbiosis
Barcelona’s origins date back 2000 years, and today it is a city of global importance. The result is a wealth of the type of cultural capital that Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen referred to as Extelligence.
A key source used for this initial study was the La Carta Històrica de Barcelona. An incredible online resource that collates data from numerous historical maps of the city.
https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/museuhistoria/cartahistorica/index.html
La Carta gives access to 29 maps of Barcelona, dating back to 150BC. Not all of these will represent a moment of symbiosis in the city, so the maps were then cross referenced with written histories of the city. While there will always be room for academic disagreement on what amounts to a symbiosis of the fabric of a city, for the sake of progressing the study, seven eras of Barcelona were identified:
1000 - Roman colony
1400 - Medieval walls complete
1714 - War of Spanish Succession (Ciutadella constructed)
1854 - Autonomy granted (Credá plan)
1908 - Society for the attraction of foreigners established
1992 - Olympics
2020ish - Today
Mapping
Having selected key dates, the next step was mapping. The intention was to be able to use these maps to identify the persistence of decisions from era to era.
This turned out to be an involved and complicated process. As useful a resource as La Carta is, the maps were clearly produced from different sources, the result being that even common elements were not aligned. To produce usable material, maps from each date had to be entirely re-drawn.
The drawing process worked by producing an initial up-to-date CAD plan of the city and working backwards. Overlaying the current plan against the 1992 plan, and identifying persistence. Any common elements were moved to a layer called 1992 - 2020 extant.
All remaining lines were identified as 2020 Development and turned invisible.
This left gaps were the fabric that was present in 1992 was not present in 2020. This was then drawn in on a layer called 1992 development. The next step was to do the same with 1908 to 2020, then 1854 to 2020, and so on.
This process was repeated working backward though the timeline, until all the layers were separated. This included the ever changing coastline.
Traditional plans
With the drawing complete, it was now possible to produce traditional plans, which show a snap shot of each era.
Extant era: history
The separation of each extant fragment allows for far greater flexibility over the drawings than traditional plans alone. This provided the opportunity to experiment with alternative ways of viewing and communicating urban fabric.
As with the traditional plans, this subsequent set drawings show snap shot of each era, but this time using colours to differentiate each period of construction.
The result is that each plan indicates the historical influence on each snap shot.
Extant era: persistence
The next step was to flip the colouring convention, from period of construction to period of demolition.
Doing so means we can now look at each era and see its future. These drawings give illustrate the persistence of the experience of each era.
Extant era: grid
The grid layout below should be read right to left.
The bold border indicates the snap shot of the era. This is followed on the right by plans of the extant fabric present in each subsequent era.
This grid illustrates the extent of commonality of experience between eras.
Extant development: persistence
This set of plans show only the new development which occurred in each era IE only the fabric dating from that specific era.
As with the era persistence drawings, the colours indicates the period of demolition of the fabric.
The result is that these plans give an indication of the persistence of fabric dating from a specific era.
Extant development: grid
This grid layout should be read right to left.
The bold border indicates the era, with only new development shown. This is followed on the right by plans of the extant fabric present in each subsequent era.
This grid illustrates the extent of influence between specific eras.
Extant fragments: grid
This grid separates each layer entirely.
The Y-axis indicates the period of construction, the X-axis indicates the period of demolition.
By completely separating all layers, this grid clearly illustrates the moments influencing change on specific eras of construction and reconstruction in the city.
Part III
In the next post we will reflect on this investigation process and then look beyond mapping to what Extant has brought into focus.