Controversias, hibridez y diseño urbano. Abrir el candado de la representación y multiplicar los posibles del espacio público

Abstract

The proliferation of relational approaches in human geography is reanimating urban studies which have shown signs of exhaustion. Diff erent theoretical tools incited from actor-network theory (ANT) and non-representational theory (NRT) are opening the conditions of possibility of the objects of study of our discipline, expanding their political ecologies and challenging the idea of public space conceived as a self-evident container. Moreover, this epistemological crisis coincides with a crisis of political representation that has eroded the notion of delegation, questioning the role of experts in the politics of urban design. In my paper, I study the urban controversy of the plaza de Lesseps in Barcelona, a contentious case study of urban planning which last refurbishment caused an unprecedented process of citizen participation that revealed a profound crisis of representation. In the light of the claims showed for this controversy, I want to rethink the public space, breaking the fence which the notion of representation restricted not only its study but also its design.