“On Saturday, Forum Barcelona 2004 opened. It is a kind of four-month-long Expo with ambitious geopolitical themes, or, as it bills itself, a vast “meeting point for citizens of the world”. At its heart is the Forum building, a cinematic tour de force designed by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. The building is also the fulcrum of an entirely new quarter of Barcelona on the coast north-east of Barceloneta and Port Olympic, the first remodelled, the second created, to coincide with the 1992 Olympics. When Forum Barcelona 2004 closes at the end of September, the city will inherit impressive new parks, yet another cleaned-up port and beach, concert and congress halls, public walkways, a new railway station dedicated to high-speed trains, clusters of new apartment blocks, an “e-city” of shiny office buildings dedicated to dotcoms and other forms of electronic enterprise, and yet another boost to its international prestige.”