From today, Plaça de la Gardunya has a new monument in the form of a photographic frieze made by the photographer and researcher Jorge Ribalta and produced by Virreina Centre de la Imatge and the Urban Ecology Area of Barcelona City Council’s Directorate of Urban Architecture and Heritage, in collaboration with the Barcelona Municipal Markets Institute and the Massana School. The project is the result of a proposal made by the new residents of the social housing flats on the square to put in the communal parts of their buildings photographs from the exhibition Àngels nous. Escenes de la reforma de la plaça de la Gardunya, Barcelona (2005-2018) [New Angels. Scenes from the Refurbishment of Plaça de la Gardunya, Barcelona (2005-2018)], which was held at La Virreina between July and October 2019. The exhibition was a photographic journey depicting the transformation undergone by the square over thirteen years, from the first demolitions carried out in 2005 – before the refurbishment – until the new occupants of the flats arrived in June 2018. The exhibition also covered aspects of the history of the place, with a particular focus on the old Santa Maria de Jerusalem monastery, as well as the changes made to what was to become the square after its demolition in the last third of the 19th century.

The murals in each space are fragments placed around the square that lend historical substance to the new architecture and help understand a part of the city that had not been properly lived in for over one and a half centuries.The original and unique nature of Jorge Ribalta’s project lies precisely in the way it experiments with new monument forms by addressing the role of monuments in public spaces without glorifying and mythifying great historical figures but instead depicting small, invisible and forgotten aspects of history to repair our memory of it for new residents. The montage will be included in the Public Art collection with the Public Art Council’s approval.

Proposed action

The proposal for a photographic installation on the memory of the square starts with an action in the three entrances to the buildings involving photographic wallpaper, which fulfils a decorative function while providing a sense of narrative and historical document.

However, the action is not limited to the blocks of flats but instead approaches the refurbishment as an organic set of components including the various spaces around the square. The flats, the market and the art school form an environment of disparate components that, in spite of their differences, are involved in the refurbishment itself, with consistency of form, designed by the Estudio Carme Pinós studio and destined to exist side by side with each other. The action provides these components with a common thread with a variety of functions and a historical link, as the photographs depict various episodes of the history of the place. The formal aim is to provide a dialogue between photography and architecture that seeks to adapt to the architectural components’ various functions and uses.

Since the refurbishment of the square remains unfinished and there are still parts to be completed in future years, such as the entrance to the old hospital’s courtyard or the refurbishment of the Jardins del Doctor Fleming gardens, the proposal is also subject to review and can be extended to the old hospital area in the future, as it is gradually carried out.

The route

A number of QR codes dotted around the frieze take you to a website where you can follow the route using an interactive map. The murals in each space are fragments (documents / monuments / ruins) placed around the square and forming a large photographic frieze depicting aspects of the history of the place using the mise en abîme technique. They show different moments of the refurbishment carried out between 2005 and 2018 that highlight the different layers left by history.

The journey starts on staircase 1 of the buildings, on Carrer Floristes de la Rambla, 10, opposite the small square on Jardins del Doctor Fleming and next to what is now the entrance to the underground car park. The mural summarises the history of the old car park on Plaça de la Gardunya and how it was later covered up. It starts off with the archaeological digging of a Neolithic necropolis in this exact location in 2009, and ends with the start of the resurfacing works after it was covered up again in 2013. On the back wall, the signed bricks make reference to the adjoining door leading to staircase 2, where they are placed. A sequence depicting the story of Corralet, the old cemetery of the Hospital de la Santa Creu and the Academy of Medicine that used to stand where the Jardins del Doctor Fleming gardens are now to be found, is superimposed on this.

The mural in staircase 2, still on Plaça de la Gardunya but this time on number 5, contains images of the archaeological excavation and the construction of the flats, from the initial excavation works in 2006 to the inauguration in the summer of 2018, and including the festivities to celebrate the start of the works and the signing of the bricks in the summer of 2016.

Staircase 3, on Carrer Jerusalem 9, is devoted to the history of the old Santa Maria de Jerusalem monastery. The mural at the entrance combines images of a female researcher studying the monastery’s history on site with images of a young girl dressed up as a nun at the 2018 Carnival. The background contains parts of the monastery that have survived, such as the cloister (in a school in the Eixample), depicted on an image of its current location in Vallvidrera.

At the top of several stalls in the back of the Boqueria market is a sequence of images in chronological order relating to the years 2005 and 2006. It depicts, in reverse chronological order (from the flats to the Massana School), the demolition of the last stalls of the market on the square at the corner with Carrer Jerusalem, and the appearance of the remains of the monastery.

The mural in the back foyer of the Massana School, next to Carrer Jerusalem, is dedicated to the “Dama de la Gardunya” [“Lady of Gardunya”]. This is the oldest archaeological find in the area: the remains of the Neolithic burial of a young woman with her grave goods that were found in exactly this location in 2011.

Finally, the mural at the exit of the La Gardunya underground car park on Carrer Hospital, which is also the back of the Massana School, shows the excavation of the Neolithic necropolis opposite the Jardins del Doctor Fleming gardens. This is also the first image of the frieze around the square on staircase 1, so that the journey ends back where it started, in a loop. Below this, a sequence of images depicts the transformation of the same place, on the corner of Carrer Hospital and the small Plaça del Canonge Colom, as a result of the construction works for the new Massana School. The sequence contains images from before the initial demolition, in 2009, until the exhibition about El Raval held in the school’s exhibition hall in the summer of 2018.

The platform # veïnsgardunya

The platform #veïnsgardunya represents a community of local residents based in the new building on Plaça Gardunya that, as a result of the new presence in the neighbourhood, got together to create a place for dialogue and coexistence not just with each other but also with all the other residents of the square and the neighbourhood. They gradually started to establish a common goal: to improve both the physical and the human aspects of the neighbourhood by means of proposals to create spaces for interaction and coexistence.

They have established separate committees (such as the “coexistence and culture” and “urban planning” committees) with the aim of working and carrying out actions and activities to achieve the desired improvements.