BARCELONA, SPAIN Metropolis Barcelona, A City of Cities

Metropolis Barcelona is a very dynamic and increasingly complex economic and social reality. This territory, structured by important natural spaces between which different cities have been settled, demands new approaches, tools and instruments of urban planning, based on the geography, to preserve the identity of the peoples and to ensure environmental sustainability, economic competitiveness and social cohesion. In this highly consolidated territory, urban planning needs to focus on the renovation of existing fabrics, the transformation of obsolete areas, the preservation of heritage and landscape elements, the urban integration of infrastructures and the adaptation to an immediate future marked by such profound dynamics as those associated with climate change, the technological revolution or the increasingly complex social demands.
In this context, green infrastructure is considered as the main supportive system of the metropolis: a set of spaces of great environmental wealth that represents more than 52% of the metropolitan territory plus all those urban spaces with the potential to become green spaces. Streets, squares, urban parks and even roofs or facades can connect to the great natural parks of the surroundings and thus form an interconnected network of green spaces, adding up to 75% of the territory. The exhibition shows the reflection of AMB on the strategic and vertebral role that natural and open spaces can have in the territory and how connecting and re-connecting roads and streets can bring people’s activities closer and improve the functioning of our city of cities.