Residential Exclusion Mechanisms of Architectural Rehabilitation as an Urban Renewal Tool in the Old City of Barcelona

Abstract

This paper examines architectural rehabilitation as a mechanism of residential exclusion within the broader framework of urban renewal in the Old City of Barcelona. It argues that rehabilitation, though often framed as preservation and improvement, functions as an instrument of neoliberal transformation that reorganizes social hierarchies while aestheticizing inequality. Drawing on the theories of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Michel Foucault, and Sharon Zukin, the study situates rehabilitation within the production of space as a field of power where architecture, governance, and capital converge. The transformation of Ciutat Vella, particularly in Raval, is analyzed as both material and symbolic: the renewal of buildings accompanies the displacement of working-class and migrant populations, while heritage becomes a tool of market valorization and cultural branding. The research exposes the contradictions of socially conscious rehabilitation, where participation and inclusion operate as ideological instruments that legitimize inequality through design and visual order. It concludes by calling for a re-politicization of architectural practice and urban renewal, reclaiming the right to the city as a collective capacity to inhabit and define space beyond capital and spectacle.