Against Demolition

The construction sector remains obsessed with demolition practices in favor of unstoppable city growth and systematic denial of the depletion of life and nature. We challenge this outdated and destructive practice: a destruction, extraction, and reconstruction cycle that displaces communities and erases material and immaterial resources. We should preserve existing structures and protect ties of belonging to build more just cities.

To listen to our podcast follow this link.

What are the consequences of future urban transformations? Could we imagine an urban model that prioritizes commons, communities, and the protection of previous traces?

Image: Roberto Feijoo

In this first series, we shed light on demolition cases, and kick off in Barcelona, with the imminent demolition of TMDC. A production hub that has become Europe’s largest cooperative for crafts and fabrication, located in the La Sagrera-Besós axis and the Sant Martí district.

Embedded within this cycle of “destruction-construction” are decisions regarding which functions the contemporary neoliberal city can or cannot accommodate, with productive spaces being among the most contested.

This tendency drives emissions, energy consumption, and resource waste that we simply cannot afford.

Can the future of Can Ricart, TMDC, or the Tres Xemeneies be collectively reimagined? In a territory in the process of consolidation, we pose this open-ended question in the hope of finding synergies that could weave the wounds and divisions of the city.

  • Resources and economy compose the two poles in which demolition lays: from the exhaustion of resources to reach unlimited economic growth

Against Demolition is a podcast by forty five degrees.

Idea, research, and production: Berta Gutiérrez Casaos and Alkistis Thomidou

Research Support: Pedro Pineda

Music Composition: Ed Davenport

Final Sound Mix: Javier Pardo

Texts and translations to Spanish: Berta Gutiérrez Casaos

Images: Berta Gutiérrez Casaos, 2024