The informal dwelling of Carmel neighbourhood and the antagonistic nature-culture discourse of the ‘Parc dels Tres Turons’ project in Barcelona.

This research focuses, both from an architectural point of view and a bottom-up ecological perspective, on the nature-culture binomial of the urban landscape, taking as a case study the self-constructed buildings to be demolished by the ‘Parc dels Tres Turons’-project in the Carmel neighbourhood in Barcelona. The storyline is the historical reconstruction of the nature-culture relationship during the 20th and 21st centuries which undermines the imaginary over which the overthrow of more than 200 houses has been justified and onto which the mountain's ‘re-naturalization’ project has been grounded. Out of this historical rereading new unpublished data on self-construction in Carmel neighbourhood appear, showing its link to green space as well as the community-based management of the environment and to the shaping of the current hybrid landscape of the area of ‘Tres Turons’. The comparison between the hegemonically constructed history and the present research on self-construction reveals a bias in the constructed imaginary of the Barcelona city council which hides the exploitation of the mountain by the Capitalocene and its inherent class struggle behind the concept of Anthropocene through a specific account of nature-culture antagonism in ‘Tres Turons’. A link can be made to a more universal approach, on how often political discourses disguise inequality behind a green screen.
Through archival documents and field work, a specific relationship has been outlined between informal housing and its ‘natural’ surroundings through a ludic relation with space and horticulture. Much of the flora and fauna of the mountain was closely linked to the self-management of housing: from orchards to tree plantations, through the breeding of animals such as rabbits, hens, goats and mules. This set of practices formed networks and an ecosystem that make the complex nature-culture binomial inseparable. In addition to the close relation with nature, there is also a significant communal management of the territory. The affective links between the inhabitants were of great importance for the process of housing and the maintenance of their living environment.
The 1953 regional planning, in the midst of the Franco period, had proposed the construction of a large central park in Barcelona and the demolition of hundreds of self-built houses. With several modifications through the 20th and 21st centuries, but without ever reaching to execute the plan, the park project remains in progress. Nonetheless, the neighbourhoods surrounding ‘Tres Turons’ are undergoing a process of landscape transformation: from historical spaces –with an everyday life relationship with nature– to mythical spaces –with a spectacularized approach to green space. The presence of the city's emblematic elements such as the 'Bunkers' or 'Park Güell' within the park’s perimeter plays a central role in placing this project on the very centre of Barcelona's tourism strategy. The public discourse needs a justification of the park and its overthrows in the democratic period and turns around a specific construction of history with the nature-culture antagonism as the backbone of it. The historical exploitation of the mountain by the dominant classes is hidden behind a homogenization of the supposed harmful action of the anthropos, including in it the whole spectrum of society, even the inhabitants who co-inhabited with nature through self-construction, that we have seen before. The context of the Capitalocene in ‘Tres Turons’ and its ellipsis in the hegemonic speech is highlighted in this research. By revealing this bias, intentions become apparent to construct a spectacular green that vertebrates the city's green mark to reassure Barcelona as a global scale icon.
Rewriting the urban history of the territory and shedding light on the economic interests behind the green mark of Barcelona as a global city allows us to rethink the bases on which the intervention on the mountain is justified. Inserting into the park project the recovery of the autochthonous forms of self-management of the inhabited environment, from self-construction to self-cultivation, can be a local tool to address the climate emergency, undermine the bases of the Capitalocene action on this hybrid landscape and strengthen the community ties inherent in the bottom-up management of its green environment.