2 . Casas factory shelter © Ana Sánchez 3 . Shelter in the square Plaça Tetuán , mirror © Ana Sánchez
Communal shelters : the “ Barcelona model ”
Communal shelters , created at the initiative of the citizenry under the watchful eye of the institutions , are the most numerous . Women , older men and children took part in the construction of spaces intended as libraries , public washrooms and centres for future cultural affairs . This model of passive defence was christened in London as the “ Barcelona model ” and was advocated by the most progressive sectors in an intense political debate in the runup to the Blitz , which ended with the victory of the conservative movement and a commitment to private shelters . The exhibition has included eighteen examples , among them the air-raid shelters in Plaça Tetuán , the Hospital Sant Pau , the squares of Plaça de la Revolució and Plaça del Diamant in the Gràcia neighbourhood and Refugi 307 , the latter two of which can be visited .
Factories , collectivisations and shelters conversion of almost half a thousand factories into production centres to ensure war material supplies . The shelters built in the Elizalde factory , the Damm factory and the F-14 ( one of the Republican Government ’ s foremost weapons centres , located in the Escola dels Salesians in Sarrià ) are just some of the industrial hiding places and caches in this section of the exhibition .
Home shelters
The experience of bombing in the midst of a war that lasted three years became a horrific everyday experience . City life coincided with times of horror , and shelters also became day-to-day living quarters for children and adults . In some cases , they even made their way into the home with the construction of private shelters . Obviously , this could only be afforded by those who had the resources to build a shelter in their own home . These ones are the most unknown , as they do not appear in any census and are often completely forgotten , even in family histories .
When the coup d ’ état failed in Barcelona , the city ’ s economy saw a major transformation . On the initiative of the workers , a widespread movement was launched to collectivise large and mediumsized enterprises , which were taken over by the workers . Moreover , Catalan institutions , by creating the Comitè d ’ Indústries de Guerra ( War Industries Commission ) in August 1936 , encouraged the
Institutionalism and life
As of October 1937 , Barcelona was the capital of the Spanish Republic and the Catalan , Basque and State governments lived there until the end of the Civil War . The shelters assigned to the personal protection of political leaders such as Lluís Companys , under
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Observing Memories Issue 7