Recycling Urban Industrial Landscapes

Industrial archeology as contemporary cultural identity

The Sant Adrián del Besós Thermal Power Plant is the tallest structure on the entire Mediterranean coast at 190m high. This colossal structure has become obsolete and its future has been debated for years to study what would be the best solution so that its new role has a positive impact on the metropolitan axis and on citizens.

Invited by the architect Pier Paolo Troiano, we first intervened in the participatory process for the referendum carried out by the city council so that the citizens could decide on its possible destruction or recovery. And on the other hand, we participated in the Recycling Urban Industrial Landscapes workshop, promoted by the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona and the master's degree in Landscape Intervention and Management of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The objective was to reflect on the future of the Sant Adrià de Besòs thermal power plant and the urban area of ​​the three chimneys. The workshop took place in the same Turbine Hall of the thermal power plants and brought together European specialists from different geographical and disciplinary backgrounds. The results of this joint work were presented within the framework of the international seminar Recycling: the future of industrial landscapes, the fourth of the seminars prior to the final congress that closed the commemoration of the Cerdà Year: Cerdà Post-metropolis: the government of the regions metropolitan in the century