Something moves (or keeps moving) in the 22@. A new axis of technoculture is taking shape through various relevant projects to renovate the Barcelona coastline. Now it is the turn of an old ice factory.
On the door of the Ateneu Popular Flor de Maig, a benchmark for Catalan cooperatives based in Poblenou since the end of the 19th century, there are three posters. One is the announcement of the Carnival party; another, that of a sewing course and, the third, a manifesto against the construction, just opposite, of "a luxury residence for students". Thus, the different souls of the neighborhood congregate in a single door: from classical associationism to the vertigo imposed by globalizing trends.
Very close to there, at the confluence of Calle Àvila and Calle Doctor Trueta, another very typical story of Poblenou yesterday and today can be explained. This week it was announced that the Urban Tech Hub of Barcelona will be located in part of the old La Sibèria ice factory, in the same space that will also be occupied by the now scattered headquarters of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IACC). In a video released on Thursday, the economist, former minister and vice president of the IACC, Andreu Mas-Colell, described the decision as historic.
La Sibèria (aptly named) was an ice factory for bars, restaurants and hotels that for years competed with Industrias Frigoríficas (the popular Frigo) for the Barcelona market and exports. Ice management was always an innovative activity: the difficulty of handling it and, above all, of its distribution, helped the solutions it generated to be incorporated into the different areas of the food industry.
Innovation is the common thread. The purpose of Urban Tech is to generate advanced ideas in the field of urbanism and architecture that can overcome the Barcelona framework to have a greater global projection. Vicente Guallart, co-founder of the IACC, considers that Barcelona's reputation in terms of urban planning has not transcended abroad as much as it deserves.
Alleviating this deficit and transferring to the real economy the advances in architecture and in the investigation of construction techniques with materials adapted to the new environmental requirements, such as wood, are objectives of the new hub.
Promoted by the IACC, the Urban Tech Hub has as partners the Col legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC), Tech Barcelona and Barcelona Global. The City Council, which organized the competition for the recovery of industrial plants within the framework of the Barcelona Green Deal agenda, will collaborate in the process through Barcelona Activa. The awarding of the projects was presented by the deputy mayor Laia Bonet.
The forecast is that the Urban Tech Hub will be up and running in 2026, the year in which Barcelona will become the world capital of architecture. If the deadlines are met, it is very likely that it will become one of the venues for the event and an active propagator of the precepts of the New European Bauhaus, as a pole where design, architecture, crafts and industry converge. .
In the midst of the controversy over the Barcelona franchise of the Hermitage, the City Council came to suggest the possibility that the Urban Tech Hub occupy the plot of land destined for the art center next to the Hotel W. The decision made now makes much more sense.
Because, while the ghost of decadent Barcelona still wanders, it is interesting to highlight that, with public-private collaboration and the contribution of various political forces, an axis of creativity is being configured on the coast that broadens the scope of 22@ and that can be a great asset to the city.
From south to north, Tech Barcelona, the future technology pole of Correos, the public library/Citadella del Coneixement, the Urban Tech Hub and the Ideal Digital Arts Center form a technoculture corridor that will have its extension in the project of innovation in creative industries of Palo Alto.
This new center, included in the same operation sponsored by the City Council, aspires to specialize in the creation and dissemination of audiovisual projects based on new technologies. The promoters of the Palo Alto BCN XRLAB are IngeniaCultura, Arsmediatech and Lavinia Services.
Giving continuity to this axis, beyond the Museum of Natural Sciences in the Forum, is a metropolitan challenge. The chimneys of Sant Adrià are the next stop.
