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Designer, architect and landscape designer, Beth Galí was a member of the group of architects known as the “80s Generation”. Her work focused on opening the city to the sea, restoring and pedestrianising the historic city centre and creating new public spaces that have helped make Barcelona a model international city. She was also involved in FAD (Fostering Arts and Design) as vice-chairwoman of ADI-FAD (1976-1979) and later as the FAD chairwoman (2005-2009).
Beth Galí studied Industrial Design at the Eina Design School between 1966 and 1969. In 1982, she received her degree in architecture from ETSAB (Barcelona School of Architecture).
Her design career began in 1966 with the design of stackable plastic litter bins for TECMO, which won an ADI-FAD Gold Delta Award. Three years later, she won another ADI-FAD Gold Delta, together with Gemma Bernal and Ramón Isern, for the design of a shower head. Beth Galí has been awarded numerous prizes, including two Gold Deltas (1966-69) and a Silver Delta from ADI FAD for the LamparaAlta streetlight (1984), the Dutch Urbanism Awards (1999), the French government’s Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2003) and the Catalan government’s St George’s Cross (2005).
From 1982 to 1988, Beth Galí worked as a municipal architect at the Barcelona City Council’s Urban Projects Department, and from 1988 to 1992, was deputy manager of the Municipal Institute of Urban Development and the Olympic Games (IMPU’92), responsible for works in the Olympic areas of Montjuïc, Diagonal and Vall d’Hebron. Her work during this period includes: the Joan Miró Park (1982-1989), the monument to Lluís Companys at the Fossar de la Pedrera (1984-1986), the Park and Sot del Migdia (1988-1992), the Joan Miró Library (1990), the façade and new access to the cemetery (1991-1992) and a set of new entrances to Montjuïc (1991-1992).
Together with Jaume Benavent and Andrés Rodríguez, she created the BB+GG studio, internationally recognised thanks to their award-winning imaginative industrial design and public space projects undertaken all over Europe. The studio’s focus is on improving how the city’s outdoor space is experienced and occupied. Their most outstanding projects include: the project to remodel St Patrick’s Street and Grand Parade in the city of Cork (Ireland, 1999), the historic quarter of Hertogenbosch in Holland (1993-1998), the design of the Bicilínea bike rack (1996) for Urbidermis and the Piet Smit docks area in the Port of Rotterdam (Holland, 1996). They have undertaken numerous projects in Spain, such as the Zafra Park in Huelva (1994) and the bathing area in the Barcelona Forum (2004).
Beth Galí has enjoyed a strong academic role in different countries and taught in the Urbanism Laboratory of ETSAB (Barcelona School of Architecture) from 1994 to 2004. She has been a guest lecturer in several universities, notably including the Schools of Architecture of Lausanne in Switzerland, Delft in Holland and Harvard in the US.
Within her numerous national and international projects, Beth Galí has designed an array of elements for the urban environment, in the area of lighting and furniture. In collaboration with Santa & Cole’s Urban Division, now Urbidermis, she has developed a broad range of products. In 1983, together with Màrius Quintana, she designed the LamparaAlta streetlight (ADI-FAD Silver Delta 1984) in homage to Alvar Aalto, a master of reflected light. In 1996, for one of her projects in Holland, she designed the Bicilínea bike rack; in 1998, for the Port of Rotterdam, she created the Latina streetlight, a light of extraordinary sculptural beauty designed to light large spaces; and in 2000, the Sara streetlight, a flexible lighting solution for pavements and roadways.
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