Abstract
The architecture of the patio in the Mediterranean city has been hidden testimony of the historical process of the city. The transformation of this characteristic element of the urban frame is a slow process as the evolution of the same city. The cultural and historical trace of the courtyard in the city buildings is key to understanding their role in the formation of the city.
The courtyard is the basic element of life generator in the house. A house that comes from the original family clan and evolving towards the tenement house. The introspective look “inside out” offered by the study of the courtyard allows a new understanding between different configuration issues that occur in the building and the city.
The thesis research focuses on the patio of the architecture of collective housing of contemporary Barcelona. The analysis is performed from a wide selection of works, determined by criteria of architectural and cultural interest, built during the sixties and seventies. But this relatively short period of pronounced social, economic and cultural change, promotes new attitudes in the construction of the urban housing courtyard.
The final reflection that concludes this thesis serves to better visualize the role of the patio in the contemporary urban scene. The nature of the architecture of the courtyard in collective housing reflects phenomena of concentration and dispersion urban in the formation of the city. The transformation of the courtyard of oscillating movements due to compression and expansion, is responding to the permanent dilemma between verticality and horizontality that produce in the growth of the city and its life forms. Delve into the rationale behind of the collective housing courtyard is opening a new framework to better understand our cultural and vital essence.
Access the thesis
