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According to Montserrat Periel, “City planning should be approached holistically. Urban design must allow citizens to change their habits. It should therefore avoid formalism and superfluous elements and have a stronger emotional impact. The goal should be to integrate the object into the urban environment”. Proof of this are the projects she has undertaken, some in collaboration with renowned architects, which integrate furniture elements, generating a global vision of the cityscape.
Montserrat Periel graduated in Architecture from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB). She has steered her career towards urbanism, aspiring to construct, transform and innovate in the city and public space.
The Barcelona City Council’s Urban Elements Department was set up in 1988 to set in motion an intense programme of urban furniture renewal, adopting a modern approach to adapt to the new needs and with the goal to give the city a new urban identity. New selection criteria gave way to new curbs, benches, luminaires and shelters, elements of evident formal simplicity, which could be extrapolated to the city as a whole, which, at the time, was undergoing a process of creation, while also being fitted with new infrastructure for the Olympics.
Màrius Quintana, the first head of the department, and Montserrat Periel, performed this task of urban furniture selection, which the City Council then used as an element to provide continuity over time to the city’s identity. To give it form, they held a number of competitions in which they asked for information about the design, manufacturer and estimated maintenance costs.
Some of the classic elements of Barcelona’s cityscape from that time are equally as relevant today as they were back then. Some examples include: Tonet Sunyer and Jordí Badía’s advertising column; Jordi Henrich and Olga Tarrasó’s Nu bench and Pep streetlight; Josep Mª Civit’s telephone booth, Beth Galí and Màrius Quintana’s LamparaAlta streetlight, Jaume Bach and Gabriel Mora’s Barcina planter and J. A. Martínez Lapeña y Elías Torres’ Plaza planter, Carme Fiol’s tree grates, Josep Mª Julià and Bernardo de Sola’s Via Júlia bollard, Jaume Artigues’ Levit bench, the Nikolson column (Pedro Barragán, Josep Mª Julià and Bernardo de Sola) and Prim column (Pedro Barragán), Antoni Roselló’s ice-cream stand and ONCE kiosk, the Pal.li advertising stand and bus shelter (Canosa, J. A. Martínez Lapeña and Elías Torres), Rafael Cáceres’ V-60 dropped curb (a mechanically cut dropped curb that has made the city’s streets and promenades accessible) or the V-120 dropped curb and glass entrances to metro stations and car parks (Mòdul-V) by Montserrat Periel herself and Màrius Quintana, as well as Montserrat Periel’s Línia handrails.
Other examples of her work are the Barcelona Cathedral square, undertaken with Màrius Quintana (1991), the Plaza España (1997), the Plaza Urquinaona and the Avenida Meridiana, in collaboration with A. Montes (1999 and 1995 respectively), the Plaza Olivereta (1995) or Gran Via (1997).
Periel is also the creator of the Negra urban seat (1993, with Màrius Quintana), the Zeta tree grate (1997), the Trapecio bench, with Antonio Montes (2002) and the Línea handrail (1993), the latter two edited by Urbidermis.
