22/10/2015

‘La Mansana de la Discòrdia’, the first book by the School of Architecture’s GRHAD

The History, Architecture and Design Research Group (GRHAD) at UIC Barcelona’s School of Architecture recently published a book entitled La Mansana de la Discòrdia (in reference to Barcelona’s so-called “Block of Discord”), the result of research undertaken by members of this interdisciplinary group over the past two years as part of the project “The Block of Discord: Modernism as the Transgressor of the Eixample District’s Uniformity”.

The book, edited by Dr Judith Urbano, contains articles by GRHAD members Manuel Arenas, Mariola Borrell, Guillem Carabí, María José Díez and Judith Urbano, all of whom are lecturers at the School of Architecture, as well as articles by architects José Juan Barba and Fátima López.

The GRHAD analysed the “The Block of Discord” and the residential buildings which comprise it from a number of different angles: history, socio-cultural context, owners, architects, façades, blueprints and interior distribution, construction, applied art, planning regulations, ordinances and their enforcement and refurbishments.

The first phase of the research consisted of establishing the cultural, technical and human aspects which led to the transformation of the houses in question. The purpose of the research was to test the hypothesis that Modernism was indeed the cause for the transgression of the Eixample district’s original urban and aesthetic uniformity.