From 1955 to 1975 more than 121,000 dwellings were built in the city of Barcelona to provide better life conditions to the huge amount of people living in shanty towns (60,000 estimated in 1949).
Many clearly differentiated groups of polígons d’habitatge (mass housing estates) were located at the borders of the city of the Barcelona, and later in a wider metropolitan context.
Two of them, Montbau and Sud-oeste del Besòs, played an essential role in the definition of a new urban model based on the Modern Movement’s proposals. Both were designed by a group of well-known spanish “modern” architects − among the others Bonet i Castellana, Soteras and the Lopez-Iñigo/Subías/Giraldez team − after visiting the Berlin InterBau in 1957.
Sud-oeste del Besòs, characterized by an “orthodox” urban design based on the combination of row houses and linear blocks, is a 19 ha. estate located near the Besòs river outlet in a former industrial area. Since the end of the Ninties, the Barcelona City Council has carried out an impressive urban regeneration program on the north-east city border, including the Forum2004 and Diagonal Mar urban reshaping projects close to Sud-oeste del Besòs.
In my graduate degree thesis I developed both a practical solution for a specific case of study and a wider research on the design and cultural background of post-1950 housing blocks located in Barcelona.
The redesign project for the Sud-oeste del Besòs estate includes a proposal for an higher density, a mixed use of the building, breaking the strong functional zoning, a new shape for the existing public spaces, new parking places and commercial facilities, and several specific design solutions for the existing blocks and row houses.