Public space, time and space of change: Lisbon and Barcelona

Abstract

During last decades, public space has undergone a major renovation of experience at international level, specially in Europe. This is an experience marked by great diversity not only of project intervention, but also of conceptual approaches to public space design. Analysis of various interventions, it is clear how the different conditions of locality focus heavily on how public space is treated.
Spain and Portugal, represent a special field of analysis, because both countries share a common recent history (dictatorships, democratic transition, accession to the EEC, etc. ..), but at the same time ‘live’ situations that urbanly, socialy and politically are substantially different . It is the aim of this article to provide a historical summary of the framework decades of eighties and nineties, in Barcelona and Lisbon, in what regards to urban development and policies for public space, evaluating in a global way the common lines, trends and most significant steps. Secondly, supported by timelines of ‘Plans, Projects and Procurement’ we refer to most significant cases for each of the cities, focusing on achievements brought to term.
Using this method of analysis space / time allows us to demonstrate how different contexts and times of intervention, correspond to different types of public space and how the concept of public space is to metamorphose paradigms that can be set in a short time. What next?