Modulverantwortung: Prof. Oliver Dufner
Lehrteam: Dr. Marcel Bächtiger
Assistant: Andrew Mackintosh

Living in the Dense City: The Barcelona Riddle

The city as a place of diverse programmatic and spatial interaction has fascinated people since time immemorial. Yet the urban cosmos with its inherent dynamic also often entails inconveniences and problems for residents. Noise, housing shortages, and traffic are themes that become increasingly burdensome as a city grows, and often they can only be changed with major interventions or over a long period. Despite the limitations described here, the great majority of cities have had influxes of new residents over centuries. In many cases, the consequence is that urban structures evolve in a more or less planned way following the lines of infrastructure and topographic conditions. The speed of transformation depends more on economic drivers than on a strict, preestablished spatial logic.

Together we shall investigate these conditions specific to Barcelona and what it means to live in one of the most densely populated cities in Europe.