Diving into the history of water supply to the city

The typhus epidemic that ravaged the city in 1914 led to the urgent construction of a major canalisation infrastructure to improve the water flow and supply capacity. The Barcelona municipal public company Aigües de Montcada was commissioned to do this, and by 1919 the work was completed: from where the Trinitat Vella neighbourhood is today, the water was pumped to the reservoir located in what is now Trinitat Nova. From there, it was chlorinated and then piped to the old part of the city and to Barceloneta. Today, that receiving station and treatment plant, which had a tank with a capacity for 10,000 cubic metres of water, is part of the spaces of the History Museum of Barcelona (MUHBA), under the name of MUHBA Casa de l’Aigua. A good day to get to know this place and its history, as well as the strategies and systems of water supply in the city, will be Saturday 11 February, as there will be two guided tours, one at 11 am and the other at 12.30 pm. Registration is required to attend.

To complete the information, stop by the exhibition Water Km Zero / BCN, which is permanently on display at the MUHBA Casa de l’Aigua and which aims to recover the memory of a long tradition of local water use and management in the territory delimited by Collserola, the Besòs river and Montjuïc. Local water is understood to be that which falls on the territory with the rain and that which arrives from other nearby places with runoff, water which over the centuries has determined the development of the towns and villages of the Pla de Barcelona.

More information and registration in this link.