Espacio teatral y escenario urbano. Barcelona entre 1840 y 1923

Resumen

This thesis investigates the patterns of theater location and organization in Barcelona between 1840 and 1923. The theater, with its signs and structures, influenced the city’s transformation and existence during the change of the century, marked by the transition between modernism and noucentism. To this end, the investigation focuses on the relation between the theater of the period, the city and society, with a special emphasis on two projects very much linked with that period’s culture: the Teatre de Natura (Natural Theater) and the Teatre de la Ciutat (City Theater). The interest in the Barcelona case is due to its singularity with respect to other European capitals, because of the political and cultural conditioning elements that defined this era. Barcelona's theater system, characterized by expansion lines and connection zones -La Rambla, Passeig de Gràcia, Paral•lel and Plaça de Catalunya-, is structured as a result of private capital investments and the appropriation of spaces for collective use by city residents, as well as the lack of political effort to institutionalize it. The working hypothesis is an attempt to understand and explain this system based on its spatial, social and cultural values with respect to the city's evolution