Memorias de la ciudad sin historia. La importancia de los afectos en la construcción y en las vivencias del barrio de la mina
- Autores: Mónica Aubán Borrell
- Directores de la Tesis: Marta Llorente Díaz (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) ( España ) en 2021
- Idioma: español
- Materias:
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- Resumen
In 1959, in the context of urban growth promoted by the ‘Plan Comarcal’, the so-called ‘Plan Parcial de La Mina’ was approved, and a new neighbourhood was expected to be built on the right bank of river Besòs area. However, it was only in 1968 that construction began, and only in 1972 the definitive project was finally set. A reason that explains both the delay and the frequent changes introduced in the urban planning can be found in the decision of using La Mina as one of the main destinations for ‘barraquistas’ or slums-dwellers in Barcelona.
From an architectural perspective, the role that La Mina assumed in the campaign against shacks entailed a series of adjustments, reductions and rashness that, shortly afterwards, would pose a risk to habitability conditions in the new neighbourhood. From a symbolic perspective, the bound that linked La Mina to the most despicable urban form in the history of Barcelona involved maintaining unfair stereotypes and negative characteristics traditionally assigned to the population from slums areas.
Considering the mentioned link as the principal axis of the reflection, this thesis proposes to explore the vague edges that separate the architectural structure of La Mina from its imaginary and from the quotidian experience of living in the neighbourhood. How have words, narratives, news, the media and photographs referring to La Mina influenced its process of spatial conformation? How have the representations of this place altered its current perception? What traces from past ‘barracas’ remain in this peripheral landscape? Why does La Mina continue to be identified as a paradigm of urban marginality almost fifty years after its construction? During the whole research period, the aim to find answers to these questions has been guided by two basic premises. On the one hand, the importance of reassembling the history of the neighbourhood with a special focus on materials, both textual and graphic, preserved from La Mina and the near slum settlement El Camp de La Bota. On the other hand, the decision to introduce affection in the process of analysing and re-reading signs and traces left by imaginary and quotidian experience in the spatial structure of La Mina. Even though they have generally been excluded from architectural frameworks, not only fear, disdain and shame, but also pride and the sense of belonging or place attachment are essential dimensions when one tries to face the complexities and contradictions that define life in the neighbourhood of La Mina. Thus, history and affect have allowed building a firm base from which to look once more to La Mina leaving aside hackneyed topics and confronting all the questions, challenges and limits that this particular territory offers to the disciplines of Architecture and Urbanism.
