Obradoiro 36
Urbanidades
2026
Obradoiro 36: Urbanidades offers a new reading of Galicia through the diverse forms of urban life that shape its land. Cities and towns, peripheries and villages, infrastructures and productive spaces form an extensive, fragmented, and interdependent urban system. Across this territory, the urban–rural binary fails to capture a reality more complex than traditional academic frameworks suggest. This issue proposes a new portrait of Galicia, understanding urbanity as the capacity of places to sustain encounters, exchange, mobility, and care. Essays, conversations, fieldwork, visual research, and built projects construct this portrait across different scales and regions. They bring critical reflection into contact with direct observation, connecting the knowledge of those who study the urban fabric with the experience of those who govern and inhabit it. Urbanidades organizes this inquiry around four actions: Reinforce, Connect, Imagine, and Reveal. Reinforce advocates planning beyond municipal boundaries to secure access to services and opportunities. Connect identifies existing centralities and public spaces as anchors for fragmented settlements. Imagine draws on the political visions that have driven the transformation of selected cities along Galicia’s Atlantic coast in recent decades. Reveal examines forms of urbanity overlooked in conventional literature, from the spatial legacy of the Galician diaspora in the Americas to the temporary occupation of space during parish festivities. The issue invites architects, planners, and decision-makers to take an active role in shaping Galicia’s urban future.
Editors:Manuel Bouzas, María Fandiño, Roi Salgueiro, Teresa SánchezPublisher: Galician Institute of Architects (COAG)Graphic Design:Miguel A. Quiroga Format: 210x275 mm, 350 pages Galician, Spanish, English ︎ Order Online
