The reconquest of Europe. Why public space?

Published in the exhibition catalogue The Reconquest of Europe. Urban public space. Barcelona: Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona,  1999

Why public space?

A great many events which have characterised life in European cities have taken place in their open spaces. Public space has not been the space in negative of dwellings, but the space in positive of the city. Public space has appeared, it has been created to be the place for assembly, for the market, for the festival, for justice, for theatre, for play, for meeting, for conversation, for religion, for carnival, for music…

The Born square provides a magnificent example of this in both medieval and modern Barcelona. Indeed, the Born was Barcelona’s main square. It was here that the nobles held their jousting tournaments and the autos-de-fe took place. The Born was the site of the glass fair, on the first day of the year: a manifestation of civic pride to which the most illustrious foreign visitors were invited. The square itself was also a market place. Thus, nobles and retailers, inquisitors and witches, caparisoned horses, vegetables and pulses succeeded each other in the same urban space, day after day. In short, the Born comprised a vital space which allowed a great number of functions to be performed; a space for all kinds of events and all kinds of inhabitants: the splendid coalescence of the equivalence between city and public space. Without this type of area, if we only had groups of dwellings, we would not be able to speak of cities as such.

Read the full article on publicspace.org

Author Albert García Espuche