Spain is in fashion. Not only because its talented football team has just won the European championships or because its economy is growing strongly or because it is an example of political stability and social progress. But also because over recent years international attention has been drawn to its creativity, from fashion to design, architecture and town planning.

This is quite clear to Torino, the world design capital and host to the international architects' congress this year, which entrusted the Catalan landscape architect Beth Galí with the task of transforming one of the city's most well-known yet neglected squares with a project that uses exclusively urban furniture elements, to demonstrate the decisive importance of design to recover and improve city spaces and foster their use by the public.

The urban furniture used carries the name of the Spanish firm Santa & Cole which has collaborated very actively on the urban renaissance of Barcelona before and after the Olympics.

To explain the starting point of her project, Beth Galí underlined how "before talking about urban furniture, we need to understand public space as a service provider. A space that offers rest more than benches, light more than lamps. The urban landscape exists already, with its fencing, its limits, its buildings and its well-defined identity. Furniture is an addition, building itineraries, defining zones, identifying the paths to follow, particular points to pause and observe the surrounding views. What was there before in any given place can be made visible".

The project for this scenic backdrop of the Roman Porta Palatina gates is one of the many transformations possible. A line of benches, emphasised by a line of light, provides the entry into the square from the area of the cathedral and invites visitors to cross the rebuilt part of the Napoleonic wall leading us to the furthest point where Corso Regina Margherita and its surroundings can be seen. From here, where some groups of seats are located, access opens to the atrium, which leads in turn to the underground area where the exhibitions are located. The exit is reached through three areas of greenery furnished in distinctive ways, using furnishings as if they were artistic installations, "to assert their capacity to act as autonomous entities, almost monumental temporary presences" in the words of the designer. (L.P.)