The "No Stop Eixample"

When I first looked up Andrea Branzi / Archizoom’s no stop city, there was something about the repetition that I could not get out of my head – It reminded me of something. I quickly realized that the expanse of similarly shaped buildings in a dense setting I was thinking about was the Eixample in Barcelona. 

In the way that Archizoom investigates the idea of a completely interior city, I think comparisons can be made to Cerda’s efforts in Spain. Similar to this idea, the Eixample blocks basically create hundreds of chamfered donuts, which allow for something special to happen in the void – taking the emphasis off of life on the street to one recessed within multiple building’s confines. Depending on the inhabitants of the blocks, they could be private with interior courtyards and sun decks for the residents or they could be little pieces of heaven open to the public like Jardins de la Torre de les Aigües (located in the same block as the BAC).