The Plaça de Les Glòries has always been an awkward zone. Its central location, which can be seen on a map as the meeting point of the roads of Diagonal, La Meridiana and Gran Via, contrasts with the perception that it has always had of being a frontier zone between the well-developed zone of the Dreta de l’Eixample and the industrial suburbs.

The infrastructure approved for this square is the instrument that will give it potential, but it is the same infrastructure which has until now also been the reason for its unappealing peripheral state. The railway lines and motorways that enter Barcelona from the north-east, the Metro, the drainage channels and the whole range of urban services found here have made the subsoil here into a web of tunnels and channels that create difficulties when it comes to carrying out certain operations that would appear to be obvious solutions to the problems of the area.

The junction of three main roadways, especially Gran Via, with its major traffic flows through to north Barcelona and the area of Maresme, requires a double level traffic system that has to be integrated within the urban context.

The potential of the square is vast, and in the future it will be even greater. In order for the new areas of 22@ in Poblenou to take shape and become a more complex and residential zone, the Plaça de Les Glòries must turn from being a frontier between city and suburb into a large, high-quality central space; this is to be achieved from a set of new bases:

• Cultural centrality, deriving from a vast leisure and cultural complex: the Auditori, the National Theatre, a new cinema complex located under the Plaça de les Arts, and the new Museum of Design that will be situated on the eastern side of the square

• Administrative centrality, deriving from the new municipal building

• Centre for business and new tertiary activities, arising from the Agbar Tower and the new Audio-visual Campus

In order for this new centrality to be effective, it must be supported by two factors: the square must be considered to be an intermodal transit point for the Metro, tram and rail systems, and it must definitively integrate the road system infrastructure into the urban landscape.

The latter point is absolutely fundamental. Due to its form and dimensions, the area of Les Glòries must be more of a park than a square. Les Glòries park has to take on its role as an urban space, and it also has to bring together all the local facilities that the residents of this area need, whilst at the same time providing a problem-free integration of all the transit infrastructure systems, especially the road network, without breaking the flow of La Diagonal.