Observing Memories Issue 7 - December 2023 | Page 79

1 . Factory 14 shelter © Ana Sánchez lives that have been lived for eight decades in the subterranean darkness : while the twisted and rusted cables betray the mark of time , life continues to burst forth today from roots in the rubble . A life that resists the relentless urban transformation of the above ground , seeping into underground Barcelona through the slabs of concrete that sealed off some of its galleries .
Of the more than four hundred spaces researched by the exhibition curators , the exhibition features a selection that illustrates their different types and their adaptation to the places where people lived and worked : communal , private and factory shelters , collectivised and institutional work spaces and those for political leaders . Many of these shelters have been shown for the first time , such as the shelter at the headquarters of the Junta de Defensa Pasiva ( Passive Defence Board ), located on Passeig de Gràcia , the Escola Popular de Guerra ( People ’ s War School ) shelter , found in the Escola Pia de Sarrià , and the Damm factory shelter . As a whole , the display of 170 photographs reveals a city beneath the city that is still riddled with holes in the present , and helps to ( re ) discover another memory of Barcelona in times of war .
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