Ignoring - Ahmad Azizi

EMBT’s architectural transformation of the deteriorating Santa Caterina Market is an attempt of architecture development through post-modernism: it rejects the “black and white” notions placed upon it. Regardless of being, for the past century or so, a “gothic” area of high poverty and crime, Santa Caterina market aims to transform a space, and thus a whole culture, through ignoring constraints and embracing only imagination.

The focal point of the reconstruction is most obviously the roof, visible to surrounding apartments. Although very modern, it manages to incorporate traditional Barcelona in it - not through an aesthetic sense, but rather, through a spiritual one. The roof, with all the paradigms of nature at its finest - the greenest grass, yellowest sand, bluest seas, and reddest sunsets - moves with the ease of a flamenco-dancer’s skirt, embracing the loving, enthusiastic, carefree nature one often associates with Barcelona culture and spirituality. Geometrically, this easy-going spirit is echoed through the lack of clean lines. Rather, the flowing wave-like-shapes, engage with the colours, and in part, with the spirits of the people who view it, allowing the structure to blend seamlessly into one’s life, despite being such a focal point.

Two key things must be considered though when examining Santa Caterina Market. Firstly, the geographical location is one of great existing poverty and crime. The main purpose of design is to fulfill certain requirements in an aesthetically pleasing sense; the main purpose of post-modernism is to break conventions. The Santa Caterina Market fulfills the requirements of those wealthy enough to afford the surrounding apartments and view the roof. Those trapped below, however, faller deeper into the exclusion of a class-society, for they cannot view it. Secondly, and in line with this argument: $25 million dollars have gone into this project in order to bring the area out of its “gothic” nature. The $25 million dollars leaves behind little more than a roof. The disadvantaged of the vicinity are left - both metaphorically and literally - at the bottom of the streets, while they look up at the “advantaged” who sit in their recently refurbished apartments over looking a roof that will never be visible to the poor. Such an act is not post-modernistic, rather, quiet hierarchal and exclusive.


Reference:
E-Architect. (2010, August 17). Santa Caterina Market Building: Architecture. Retrieved August 10, 2010, from http://www.e-architect.co.uk/barcelona/santa_caterina_market.htm
Glancey, J. (2005, August 08). New Wave Santa Caterina Market. Guardian, Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/08/spain.foodanddrink
Mercat Santa Caterina. (2010, June 15). Traditional Commerce. Retrieved August 10, 2010, from http://www.mercatsantacaterina.net/
WorldFlicks. (2010, August 17). Santa Caterina Market. Retrieved August 10, 2010 from http://wiki.worldflicks.org/santa_caterina_market.html#coords=(41.386133,2.178539)&z=19
Ignoring