A project to remember housing struggles in Barcelona
Ninety-one years have now passed since the first big tenants’ strike recorded in Barcelona. Taking this as its historical context, the Councillor’s Office for Democratic Memory is promoting the programme “Memory of housing struggles in Barcelona”, which will be rolled out citywide with a wide range of activities to study, disseminate and make the case for movements and people that have developed collective strategies to defend the right to housing, and with the gender perspective.
Since the big tenants’ strike in Barcelona between April and December 1931, the Catalan capital has been the scene of numerous struggles, mobilisations by local people and historical moments relating to decent housing, with women always at the forefront.
These include shanty housing and its eradication, self-built homes in the mountain neighbourhoods, the construction of cheap housing, the appearance of large housing estates and, more recently, the property boom and housing speculation.
Round tables, exhibitions and historical routes
The programme “Memory of housing struggles in Barcelona” will feature thirty activities around all the city’s districts. The programme gets under way with the presentation of the book 40 anys de transformació col·lectiva dels barris de l’Esquerra de l’Eixample i Sant Antoni and a round table on struggles by local people. The presentation is at the Casa Golferichs on Wednesday, 16 February.
The coming months will bring round tables, lectures, radio programmes and podcasts, photographic exhibitions and a series of routes and historical itineraries to help contextualise and give an insight into historical events, movements and people that have stood up for the right to housing over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries.
More information and the full programme at: barcelona.cat/memoriademocratica/ca/programa/memoriahabitatge
