Barcelona's Fossar de les Moreres: Disinterring the Heterotopic

The architectural discourse has eagerly embraced, frequently misinterpreted, and reluctantly abandoned Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia since he formulated it in the late 1960s. As a response, this article recuperates heterotopia by underscoring its subversive roots, its potential for revealing the built environment's political relevance, and its usefulness in interpreting urban landscapes as unique elements of everyday life. By reformulating the idea in terms of Fossar de les Moreres, a Barcelonan memorial built in 1988 to commemorate Catalan independence, this essay serves a dual purpose: clarifying the complex meaning of one specific urban landscape while emphasizing the contemporary relevance of heterotopia, particularly in relation to landscape architecture. As it is most often landscapes which the concept, in its formalistic guise, is employed to categorize, colonize and, effectively, control, the assertion of a more accurate definition of heterotopic spaces that is based on engagement, autonomy, multivalency and change is essential to promoting a landscape architecture discourse founded on similar terms. Ultimately, this article is a model for one way to more successfully insert landscape architecture into ongoing theoretical debates addressing space, urbanism and design.