Barcelona Metròpolis

Barcelona Metrópolis (Catalan pronunciation: [bərsəˈɫonə məˈtɾɔpulis]) is a magazine of urban information and thought dedicated to monitoring the evolution of the city of Barcelona.

Barcelona. Metròpolis Mediterrània (B.MM) was first published in 1986 under the editorship of the journalist Joan-Anton Benach Olivella as a magazine featuring information and debate dedicated to monitoring the evolution of the city of Barcelona. Benach defines the magazine as a library of urban culture, as it has contemplated Barcelona’s transformation from different perspectives –urbanistic, architectural, sociological, communicational and in regard to the new technologies – and through all the cultural disciplines, from 1986 to 2006.

In 2007 the philosophy professor Manuel Cruz became editor. His appointment coincided with the adoption of the magazine's current name, Barcelona Metropolis, and its re-definition as a magazine dedicated to urban information and thought, concentrating on the analysis and verification of the idea that what happens locally in the city has its meaning on a global scale. After the election of the new local government of CIU, the Catalan conservative party (up to present), Manuel Cruz was suddenly not invited to continue editing the magazine, obviously due to ideological reasons. The last issue of the magazine, dealing with "new models of family" was censored and finally replaced by another one.

The pages of B.MM have been a showcase of many events and trends that have occurred in Barcelona since 1986: initiatives, projects, debates, cultural and artistic endeavours, preservation of heritage and history, creators, architecture, communication, etc. The magazine has covered the city’s great urbanistic transformation from the proclamation of Barcelona’s candidacy for the 1992 Olympic Games to the conception of the new Districte 22@ and Diagonal-Mar. The magazine was launched by the local government with the goal of its being a public service in sharing knowledge in a way not done by private initiative.

The 69 issues of this first phase of the magazine constitute an extremely useful reference collection about Barcelona available through the Internet in Catalan and Spanish.

In 2007 'Barcelona Metropolis' changed course, taking into account the heritage of the first phase, with a view to expanding the scope of the topics previously dealt with, adding new subjects of focus, discourses and with new sensitivities. The most visible change was the inclusion of the subtitle Magazine of urban information and thought, a declaration of principles which, in Manuel Cruz’s words, seeks to invite the reader to reflect on the content of cities, which have become exceptional spaces of reality, the settings for maximum collective intensity, in which the most significant part – both good and bad – of everything that affects us takes place. In this sense, Barcelona Metropolis looks at the city as a phenomenon in which what occurs in the local sphere is also, at the same time, a reflection of what happens on a global scale.

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