Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

The recently renovated Jardins de Ca l’Aranyó, in the district of Sant Martí, now feature the Susana Solano sculpture ‘Himne, mite i paradís 2019-2021’. This is the latest piece to become part of the city’s municipal public art collection, but how are decisions taking regarding which pieces are added? Who makes the requests? This article explains.

As with Himne, mite i paradís, at Ca l’Aranyó, all works of art to be placed in public spaces are submitted to a specific process. The Public Art Advisory Council handles various requests, generally from the districts or from individuals, studies them and submits them to its criteria to either validate or reject them. The Barcelona Charter also sets out that 1% of the city’s urban planning budget is to be used for this.

The piece by Susana Solano, now in place in Ca l’Aranyó as part of the remodelling process, was proposed by the architect in charge of the project, Víctor Rahola. On 9 July 2019, the technical commission for the Public Art Advisory Council asked the architect for a specific sculpture project detailing how the space would take shape, in order to evaluate it.

At that point, together with the director of Projects and Works Services at the Municipal Institute of Urban Landscape and Quality of Life, the piece Himne, mite i paradís was proposed. The advisory council made a positive evaluation of the proposed sculpture by Susana Solano.

Modern obelisk at the centre of Ca l’Aranyó

The green space forming part of the revamp to Ca l’Aranyó is distributed via a large central area. The sculpture Himne, mite i paradís stands as a point of reference here, a modern obelisk, according to Rahola. The piece belongs to the municipal public art collection and measures 440×420×219 cm. It is a semi-transparent enclosed piece of work, covered in a stainless-steel metallic mesh.

The cost of the sculpture (69,510,04 euros) corresponds to part of the urban renovation project for the Jardins de Ca l’Aranyó.