Dil Se

VINCENTE GUALLART  is Barcelona’s chief architect who has been working overtime to keep up the planning standards of his city which is a role model for big town developers all over the world.  MEENAKSHI RAO  met up with him in Barcelona to seek some answers for the traffic madness that is Delhi. Excerpts of the conversation: Do you think for expanding cities like Delhi, metro rails, dedicated rapid bus corridors and other public transport systems is the right way to go? A city is a complex system and should not grow in an unplanned or localised manner. The first question in a big city is whether you want to grow in the periphery or you want to promote other cities around you, like creating satellite cities which Paris did. Cities that are too big to organize a good life for their citizen are unviable and unsafe cities. For cities like Delhi, which was built long back and has been incoherently expanding ever since, the way to go is to keep constantly upgrading itse...

Barcelona is the steal-ideas city for the world’s best town planners who cannot believe how correctly it has expanded through a plan model built four centuries ago. From a vibrant walking culture, to integrated work-home-market spaces, it has cut down not only the 100 bus routes to a compact 26 but also managed to keep mobility of the local population to the minimum with a 30 per cent cut in car traffic.  MEENAKSHI RAO   walks around Barcelona to tell you how this model can be used to bring sanity back to Delhi The best thing about Barcelona is not just its iconic football club and stadium. It is not even the rare opportunity of spotting one Mr Lionel Messi walking casually down its most famous people’s street in the world – La Rambla. What is greater than the rich history, culture and vivacity of Barcelona is how its town planners have kept it small, straight and simple despite all the growing up that Barca has seen since the iconic town planner Iidefons Cerda devised a d...