Bac de Roda Bridge - by Santiago Calatrava

After regenerating the urban fabric of the city with small- and medium-sized interventions in the first 1980s and coinciding with Barcelona's preparations for the candidature for the 1992 Olympic Games, the city started building bigger projects. It is said that the Bac de Roda Bridge (or the Calatrava Bridge as it is popularly known) was the starting point for all these bigger inerventions. The steel and concrete bridge, with its twin, pristine white, inclined and split arches, helped to unite two working-class districts at the northern part of the city that were separated by train tracks.

Still, what the City Council wanted was something more than just a bridge, they wanted a symbol or an icon that reflected the new urban and political strategy to regenerate also those parts less touristy and known of Barcelona. Calatrava, though he had never built a bridge before, was chosen for the new structure (the new image). People who know about bridges say that it is much more complex (therefore expensive) than what would have been necessary -like many other Calatrava bridges around the world- but the real purpose of the project, its social impact, succeeded and the bridge became an emblem of the pre-Olympic architecture of the city. The future urbanization of the Sagrera Park, which starts at this bridge, will turn it into an obsolete structure, but the Park's masterplan not only leaves the bridge intact but includes a glass dome under it to cover the new high-speed train lines and keep the bridge's urban and social iconic status.