A Spanish architect credited with being among those who transformed the city of Barcelona over the past two decades will speak on Governance And The City at a lecture on Saturday.
Josep Anton Acebillo is CEO of Barcelona Regional, the metropolitan agency for the strategic development of urban projects and infrastructure of the city. He is professor at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Switzerland.
According to Jacques Borg Barthet, co-chairman of the KTP – Chamber of Architect’s built environment standing committee, the KTP considered it important to invite Prof. Acebillo, who has often been asked to advise cities as an expert on urban strategies, to Malta because transformations like Barcelona’s don’t happen by accident. “They take place because they are driven by strategic visions, which bring vast considerations into play, such as quality of life, housing, transport, culture… economics.
“The KTP has long recognised the important relationship between the quality of the built environment and quality of life and is committed to the improvement of urban quality in the Maltese Islands. It also believes firmly that, to achieve better quality urban environments, it is necessary to adopt a strategic, cross-sectoral culture of urban governance, one that does not stop at the reform of planning application procedures to control development but rather focuses on the kind of urban environments we would like to inhabit and the tools, mechanisms and regulatory, organisational and physical interventions necessary to achieve them.”
Prof. Acebillo’s experience, in terms of the lessons learned from the strategic transformation of Barcelona was remarkable, Mr Borg Barthet said.
“One cannot, of course, simply transpose the strategies adopted in Barcelona elsewhere but one hopes the lecture and discussion that will follow will open up some new avenues of thought on the way that the built environment and the way it is ‘constructed’ are regarded in Malta,” he said.
The lecture, to be held at 9 a.m. in the Aula Magna of the Old University in Valletta, marks the 2010 World Day of Architecture, themed Better Cities, Better Lives, Sustainable By Design by the International Union of Architects, of which the KTP is a member.
Entrance is free. Go to www.ktpmalta.com for more details.