by Alex Camprubi, International ASLA
1992 was a year in which the world shifted gears on development, particularly within the sustainable realm. Not only because of Rio’s Earth Summit or Beijing’s Green Plan [2] and their third economic reform [1], but 1992 was also the year that the US lifted sanctions against China, the Cold War formally ended, and Barcelona had just hosted their Olympic Games, transforming the city while astonishing the world by transforming a large-scale media event into a project for the future of their citizens.
Barcelona overcame the challenge of being denied a seafront for recreation purposes for many years. Instead, they masterfully linked their urban fabric to the sea by establishing an urban connectivity between four strategic areas. This allowed them to gain more than 600 hectares of new green area, plazas, and parks [2] and further enabled the city of Barcelona to formally embrace the environmental concerns as a third pillar of Olympism [3]. During this process, Barcelona was able to build what became one of the most valuable city brands in the world [4].