In the present globalized world, we should wonder what is the need of an iconic image of the city, or a logo, or a brand, or a particular urban narrative?

Instead of answering this question with obvious economic and market arguments, our project aims to analyze the underlying tensions, complex narratives, and the plurality of identities that are often hidden under the simplified and satisfying image produced by the branding processes. Our goal is to go beyond the challenge of the fabrication of the ideal city with the discourse of the truth of the real city, or to compare the city consumed by the tourist and the city experienced by the permanent residents., and try to understand the hidden narratives that are present in the urban landscape and in the different urban artifacts.

The image of the invented city has been created for economic, commercial and political purposes, but underneath lays a complex imaginary which may or may not agrees with it. However even when it disagrees, it also enriches and provides genuineness and historical reality. This process reminds us that the city consumed by tourists is neither a cardboard city, nor a theme park, or at least those spaces used as a theme park may coincide in time and space with a living reality, with memories inscribed in streets, monuments and buildings. Our goal is to understand how a modern metropolis like Barcelona has been able to become a world reference by analyzing of the process construction or invention of Barcelona from the nineteenth century to the present time. This process includes from intense marketing campaigns or flashing urban transformations to less obvious processes hidden in the social and cultural fabric of daily life experiences or social and cultural narratives.

The object of our study is therefore the process of invention of contemporary Barcelona, using the city as a case study. Although Barcelona case is quite unique, there are certain traits that could be easily transferable to cities that share similar cultural and political conditions. Barcelona share with other cities a history of dynamic industrial and economic development leaded by a very active bourgeoisie which has been unable to transform the city a political center of decision in their countries, they also have had an intense past of social conflict and even revolutionary processes, among different social classes. All theses historical events have left in their urban spaces a vivid symbolic memory with layers of different historical periods. In this sense, Barcelona could be comparable to cities such as Milano, Rotterdam, Manchester, Chicago, or Hong Kong, that carries a similar past. However, we think that the interesting contemporary history of Barcelona could be a source of inspiration for other urban processes across the world. Our project, therefore, aims to produce a useful knowledge that goes beyond this case of study.

Finally, we should stress the critical and analytical dimension of our study, from an interdisciplinary perspective. We want to review and contextualize the history, the facts and narratives (textual and symbolic) about the contemporary Barcelona. Since the objective is too wide, we will focus on how the visual moves from places and objects to the narratives, politics and texts. Or also, in a reverse process how from concepts, policies or text we move into the
realm of icons, or to forms of organization or definition of the urban fabric.

Data inici: 01/01/2014

Data fi: 30/04/2017