Superblock Barcelona

The Superblock project has become an urban project that aims to improve the adaptation of cities to global challenges from the logic of smart and local city metanarrative. The increase in public space for the use of pedestrians to the detriment of motorised traffic has been the main environmental strategy but also to face the challenges of the urban trade sector, affected by profound restructuring. This adjustment is characterized by an unstoppable increase in concentration of consumption around less and less global business oligopolies, many of which operate from the online channel. At the same time, this transformation is also characterized by a progressive closure of local retail establishments at street level that threatens the multifunctional and multi-scale nature of the city itself. The critical analysis of the Superilla Barcelona project from the hypothesis of planetary urbanization allows us to question the limitations with which urban intervention is located in order to face the manifestations of these global challenges. It also allows you to see what implications the pedestrianization of these streets can have on the functioning of the spaces of consumption in Barcelona. The case study is especially remarkable because it concentrates on an important part of the contradictions of a large part of the commercial policies and local urbanism that are developed today. It is also noteworthy that the Barcelona Superblock has been presented as a success story, which is why it has been exported internationally.