Identify the characteristic elements that contribute to Barcelona's urban environment. Discuss and describe at least five.

Part two
The house is built for us to live in. The city is founded so that we can leave our house and meet up with others who have left theirs.
Ortega y Gasset

Americans do not need piazzas. They should be at home watching television.
Robert Venturi

Describe and reflect upon the nature of public space in barcelona.

Part three
. . . the city's new democratic authorities were anxious to change the city's landscape, and to give visual expression to the political changes -- to demonstrate that political change had indeed taken place. Design culture was the means to bring about this change. The results were noted by all.

Reflect upon the role of design/design in the urban environment of Barcelona. Identify, document, and analyze ten instances or examples.

General
1. re: the difference between part one and part three.

In part one you are expected to make explicit connections between the forms (of the city) and the values (of its inhabitants); how the structure and spaces of the city both reflect and inform its particular urbanity, an urbanity evidenced in both the citys physical forms and in the values and behaviors of its inhabitants.

Part three asks you to look at instances of design and subject them to formal analysis (like you did in the site visit analyses). Think of part three as if you were looking through a microscope at a specimen of design (something done on purpose, with some intention in mind, whether fully realized or not). This may be something that appeals to you or has caught your attention.

Think of part one as if you were looking through a graduated lens -- one that goes from a wide-angle to a telephoto; from the big picture to the telling detail.

2. suggested working procedure

Copy the outline of the assignment and begin filling in. Do not wait until you have five examples for part one and ten for part three. Post a photo and write a short paragraph. get something down and then begin to hone it. This will take more than one pass or draft. No one gets it just right on the first try. think about what youve identified and described; see whether you have said it as well and as precisely as the quality or artifact warrants.

This assignment should be fun as it is essentially retrospective and privileges your particular take on barcelona. It is not rocket science (though that could be fun too). What you are doing here is reflecting upon and sorting through thoughts, ideas, experiences, and epiphanies you've already had during your summer here. In doing so, you might have further epiphanies, or at least, certain things may begin to fall in place.

3. re: part two

In order to do this assignment, it is important to: read the three articles handed out last week; re-skim the articles from the first two weeks especially; keep the prompts in italics front and center. It will help to re-read the latter often in order to explore their multiple registrations.

The observations and comments you make about public space in barcelona will, perforce, question, up-end, reinforce, or complicate your prior understanding of public space, its forms and its norms. At the very least, your prior notions of the varieties of public space will be engaged.

Go with this; once youve set up a relation between a couple of observations (a hypothesis, even) play around with it. Use it to question, speculate, wonder aloud. That is the beauty of the essay form.

4. re: format

It would be good if all of you followed the same format. What i suggest is to have the whole assignment on the same page, (rather than a central page with links to each part on a separate page). Copy the text of the assignment below and begin to fill it out your responses below each part. Give a heading to each instance in part one and part three. Keep text and photos separate. Size photos the same to the degree possible.