The party to celebrate the completion of the Barcelona workshop was held on the roof of the small building that houses the gallery, studio and mini-theater which were the venue for the workshop.

Y-GSA's urban workshop involves rapidly reading a city and intervening at an effective point in that city.  This workshop, intended to promote the simultaneous study of the city and architecture, targeted Yokohama last year.  The history of urban formation is entirely different for Yokohama and Barcelona, but their scale and character made them good material for study.

I spent only two days this time on the Barcelona workshop.  On the first day, I visited the site to understand the problem tackled by the workshop and to give advice in the studio.  The next day, the final review was held, and the party began at dusk.  I was not present for much of the ten-day workshop, but from the intense presentations at the final review and conversations I had with students at the party afterward, I sensed that the results exceeded expectations.

In a workshop, quickly understanding what the core of the problem is and building a hypothesis is important.  Especially when time is limited and students must work as a group, this demands not only architectural experience but concentration of every imaginable skill and ability including the ability to communicate.  When the workshop is in a foreign country, then there are additional obstacles such as differences in language, climate and culture that must be overcome.  It is an entirely different experience from a studio problem.

When I first set foot inside the Barcelona studio two days before the final review, I had already heard beforehand that the various arrangements had been difficult, and the tense faces of the students worried me a little.  However, I think at the review, everyone seemed pleased to have made it through the week-long effort.

The biggest attraction of this workshop, which was arranged from the perspective of tourism, was without a doubt the city of Barcelona.  It has a clear urban structure in which different eras--Roman, medieval, early modern and modern--are layered.  It has ambitious plans to develop further by devising a strategy as a creative city utilizing the legacy from the past.  The workshop problem, set in the waterfront district of the old urban area, is designed as a realistic strategy for solving shortcomings in the expanding urban structure, connecting the lively central area with the sea, and raising the city to the next stage in its development.

Watching the process, I was interested in Professor Falcon's direction.  When he saw that students were finding it difficult to agree on a final proposal,  he had them explain each proposal using three keywords.  In this way, the final path students ought to take was made clear.   This skilled approach seemed to me quite European and made a strong impression on me.  I also think what he suggested was helpful for the students.

However, I sensed at the review that the critiques were not so much about what the students had achieved in the workshop; instead they were more about the strategy of using tourism as a means of urban intervention.  The architects and planners who attended seemed to limit themselves to abstract statements based on their own philosophical position rather than commenting on the specific designs or methods the students had proposed.  In that sense, the workshop was used more as a practical, utilitarian performance rather than an educational occasion, compared with the workshop held in Yokohama with ETH Zurich.  Yet, even if that were the case, the week was indisputably an intense experience for the students.

Finally, the sense of achievement the students had was thanks to the untiring support of the lecturers Mr. Mikio Tai and Mr. Teppei Fujiwara, who accompanied them and responded to their needs, and to the efforts of Ms. Mariko 

Terada who was responsible for negotiation and coordination.

Barcelona is a city of tremendous power.  The diverse elements that have shaped the city survive to this day.  Its topographical character, that is, the coastline and the mountains that run parallel to it for several hundred kilometers, is also a constant.  A number of rivers flow in parallel, directly connecting the mountains to the sea.  The blend of the man-made city and the topography has produced the premier tourist city in Europe. Then there is also Gaudi.  The city has tremendous advantages.  For students used to the loose urban context of Japan, staying in Barcelona, thinking about cities and giving themselves up entirely to the task of producing architecture must have been fairly hard work.  However, they ought to get used to cities that have well-defined urban contexts.  That is because Westerners, even people who are not in architecture-related areas of work, are inured to this power of cities.  Unfortunately, being accustomed to it is essential, given the international foundation on which contemporary architecture now rests.  However, when dealing with such a city, it is not necessary to adopt a Western strategy.  There are no doubt things that only we can see, because we are Japanese.  Perhaps that is what will create the new architecture and city of tomorrow.  It would have been good had discussions in the workshop developed to that point, but they did not.

The first half of the week-long workshop was dedicated to research.  The presentations were interesting and were substantive in content, despite the fact that students working in groups on different themes were confused and did not understand the overall framework.  On the other hand, the architectural projects on pre-established sites between the Ramblas and the coastline in the latter half of the workshop seemed to lose diversity and depth of research slightly--there seemed to me to be something wanting in the projects.  Seamless continuity between research and project is absolutely important, but I sensed that it can be extremely difficult to those not used to it.  But the ability to develop such continuity is something that students will learn at Y-GSA.

There is one thing important that Luis said: call students "participants," not "students."  A workshop is by no means based on a "teacher-student" relationship.  Everyone is a participant in the project.  If we look at the bigger picture, making architecture means creating cities--everyone who is connected in any way is a participant.  I think the participating students got a very vivid sense of that.

An architectural workshop is like a training camp for an extracurricular club.  People have to observe, think, be active and produce something in a short time.  Since they are staying in a city in a foreign country, it stands to reason they will use architectural muscles they ordinarily would not use.  Students who participated and did their best throughout the workshop period ended up being able to fly a little higher than before.

The way Professor Luis Falcon set the theme for Barcelona--dealing with various basic data but using an economic perspective--brought out a lot more clearly the urban and architectural views of each architect.

What words remain in students' minds?  An architect must think about and depict a distant future somewhere that no one knows about as yet.  Therefore, I would like students to value, not just things about which they have been persuaded intellectually, but small words that remain lodged in their minds.  Professor Kitayama's comment at the final review that how private, common and public domains are defined is always important made a strong impression on me.  It may appear to be just common sense, but it seemed to me to represent a quite fresh and appealing approach to the practice of designing space.

That is, those doing the teaching are able to fly a little higher too as a result.  That is why workshops are so enjoyable.

We spent two weeks in Barcelona, one of the top tourist cities of the world, not as "tourists," but almost as "residents," staying in apartments, going to the university and repeatedly studying the site.  Spanish and Italian as well as English were used everyday, and we had our hands full just trying to communicate.  Messrs. Luis Falcon, Fujiwara and Tai demanded a high level of participation.  However, as a result of throwing ourselves headlong into the reading of a city we were unfamiliar with, and continuing to engage in discussions using different languages and sketches, we became intensely aware of Barcelona's urban structure.  The two weeks passed in no time at all.

Trying to read a city from the perspective of tourism was a novel experience for us, and we were able to experience in an extremely objective way Gaudi's architecture and various events.  And there was continuity between what we experienced and our design activities in projects--it was a process we could only have experienced in this workshop.

We hope to make full use of the things we learned and experienced through all our senses in Barcelona and to use it as material for thinking about the future of Yokohama, which also aspires to a city of tourism, and about architecture.

(All participants in the Y-GSA Barcelona Workshop)