Barcelona 2004 A “Redeemed Flaneur’s ” Report

The places that we have known belong now only to the little world of space on which we map them for our convenience.... remembrance of a particular form is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, road, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years. Marcel Proust. Remembrance of things past. Swann’s way (À la recherché du temps perdu. Du côté de chez Swann) ABSTRACT. The main objective of this report is to introduce (not to develop) three main approaches to study Barcelona and provide in each one potential research directions. The first one is the historic structural-functional approach that describes the city based on its history and current facts and theories. The second one is the hermeneutical approach that presents the city as a locus of signs or as a text to read and interpret. Finally, the third approach is the “redeemed flâneur’s ” approach. This report suggests a way to redeem the nineteenth century figure of the flâneur’s approach to city life from a perspective that is neither structural-functionalist nor reduced to hermeneutic analysis. The image of the “redeemed flâneur ” is not the passive city-observer, but the city-reader that also becomes an author, an active participant in the production of meaning. The “redeemed flâneur ” approach is a relatively unexplored option to study the city