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Criticalista

Rants and reflections on architecture, cities, and politics

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Form Follows Footwear

[Originally published in The Architectural Review April 2024] Plaza Gomila, a small urban square in Palma on the Mediterranean island…

Camper, El Terreno, GRAS Reynés Arquitectos, MVRDV, Palma de Mallorca, Plaza Gomila, The Architectural Review

Bike Lanes and Politicians

This is Christians Brygge, a central Copenhagen traffic thoroughfare. It varies between one and two lanes for motor vehicles in…

Amsterdam, automobile, bicycling, bike lane, Copenhagen, corruption, politics, Toronto

Failing the Test of Time

The famed Sant Antoni Library by RCR Arquitectes, Catalonia’s only Pritzker Prize-winner, has been undergoing a complete renovation since September…

Barcelona, Pritzker Prize, RCR, renovation, Sant Antoni Libary, sustainability, time

Greetings from Barcelona

[Last December, Bauwelt Magazine asked their contributors to send them a postcard from their hometown along with a new year’s greeting addressing…

Barcelona, Bauwelt, macba, public space, Raval

A Highly Contested Urban Space in Barcelona

It’s finally happening. A commercial thoroughfare in my neighborhood that is much too narrow, traffic-laden, and overcrowded with shoppers is…

automobile, Barcelona, pedestrians, right to the city, streets, urban design

Making a Difference

[Originally published in DETAIL Magazine 5.2023] Project Gomila is a micro-urban reconstruction initiative by the owners of the Spanish global…

Color, DETAIL magazine, Incremental Urbanism, Micro Urbanism, MVRDV, Palma de Mallorca, Project Gomila

La comida es un medio para hablar de espacios e infraestructuras

[Originalmente publicado en Bauwelt 11.2023] Bajo el título FOODSCAPES, el pabellón español presenta un examen del contexto agroarquitectónico y analiza…

Bauwelt, foodscapes, Spain, Venice Biennale

The Post-Olympic Transformation of Barcelona

[Originally published in Heide Wessely and Sandra Hofmeister, editors: Barcelona: Urban Architecture and Community Since 2010. Munich: Edition DETAIL, 2023]…

architecture, Barcelona, Edition DETAIL, politics, tourism, urbanism

Life in a Gated Community

When my parents retired around 20 years ago, they decided to move to Seville, my father’s hometown. Since they were…

automobile, gated community, suburbia

Gaudí, Ecologist

Antoni Gaudí is often cited as an architect who was “in tune with nature.” His complex, curvilinear forms, it is…

ecological design, Gaudí, nature

Grassroots Gentrification?

A few years ago, dozens of residents of a street in Barcelona’s El Raval neighborhood started hanging potted plants from…

Barcelona, gentrification, plants, vegetation

Less Glass

In 1832, as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lay on his deathbed, he famously uttered the words “Mehr Licht” (more light).…

enlightenment, glass, Le Corbusier, light, McMansions, McMinimalism

Save Barcelona’s Plaça dels Àngels from MACBA contemporary art museum’s expansion

Please consider signing this petition. [Versión en castellano sigue a continuación / Versió en català segueix a continuació] Barcelona’s Plaça…

Barcelona, macba, petition, politics, public space, Raval, zoning

The Metaphysics of Zoning

Welcome to one of Barcelona’s “newest” green zones. Barely a year old, it’s located one block off Las Ramblas, the…

Barcelona, development, macba, metaphysics, public space, zoning

Trees in the Air

What is the point of suspending trees in the air? They grow much better on the ground, where they also…

green wall, steel, trees

Sharing School

[Originally published in Bauwelt 5.2023. Photos by Aitor Estévez] Barcelona has some of the densest neighborhoods in Europe, so it…

Barcelona, Bauwelt, community, Poblenou, school, SUMO Arquitectes

Up Close and Personal

[Originally published in Bauwelt 4.2023] One of the growing problems facing Spain today is the ongoing depopulation of its interior…

Aragon, Auditorium, Bauwelt, brick, Magén Arquitectos, small town

The Attrition of Automobiles

The 2022 European Prize for Urban Public Space has gone to the disappearance of an urban expressway in Utrecht, Netherlands,…

Catharijnesingel, European Prize for Urban Public Space, landscape restoration, OKRA Landscape Architects, rewilding, Utrecht

Yellow Garden

[Originally published in Bauwelt #16.2022] When Spain imposed its nation-wide lockdown to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus on…

Bauwelt, COVID-19, garden, Granada, Improvisation, nightclub, Tomás García Píriz

Not in Our Public Space

Public space belongs to everyone. That’s why the latest proposal to expand the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA)…

Barcelona, macba, politics, public space, Raval

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Criticalista collects Rafael Gomez-Moriana's writings on architecture and the built environment. All photographs by the author unless indicated otherwise.

©2014 Rafael Gomez-Moriana. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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