The Generalitat intervenes to save the old women's prison of La Trinitat

BarcelonaThe Trinitat prison, inaugurated in 1963, was the scene of prison repression against women in Catalonia during the last fifteen years of Francoism. Apparently, it was a modern center, but the objective was none other than to re-educate the inmates according to the criteria of the nuns of the Evangelical Crusaders. There they imprisoned women convicted of common crimes and also political activists. For years, different entities have been fighting for the place not to disappear from the map and to serve to remember this chapter of history, but until now the Barcelona City Council had argued that it was not compatible with the urban planning project. Finally, it has had to yield and part of the prison will be preserved because the process to declare the place a Cultural Asset of National Interest (BCIN) as a historic site has begun. "The Barcelona City Council ignored all the proposals we made," assures Pep Cruanyes, spokesperson for the Comisió de la Dignitat. "Their argument is that the construction project for the housing plan was very advanced and it was impossible to preserve anything of the center," he adds.

The Consell de l'Advocacia Catalana also adopted an agreement, in its last plenary session, which it transferred to the Departament de Justícia i Qualitat Democràtica, the Barcelona City Council and the Comisió de la Dignitat. The Council, as it details in a statement, proposes a solution that allows "to reconcile both purposes through an urban revision that expands the buildable area in the zones intended for housing, thus guaranteeing that the preservation of a part of the space will not entail any reduction in the number of public housing units planned".

The arguments in favor of conservation

Cruanyes explains that the memorialist entities had in their favor the Law of Democratic Memory, which establishes that special care must be taken of the memory of political and social repression of women during Francoism. "Furthermore, the urban planning law requires that urban planning must be done while protecting the heritage of neighborhoods and towns," she says. On July 25, 2025, the commission submitted a petition to initiate a declaration process for a part of the prison building as a BCIN to the Department of Culture of the Generalitat. On April 17, the Department of Culture notified that the protection procedure was being opened. Among other arguments, according to what is stated in the file, is the fact that the women's prison of La Trinidad "embodies, above all, a history directly related to Francoist repression, applied to women deprived of their freedom, held captive in this penitentiary center". "The will and historical role of the women's prison of La Trinidad have been clear: to monitor, indoctrinate and punish the political and ideological dissent of women contrary to the Francoist regime," the file states.

In the prison, iron discipline was administered, based on psychological repression, humiliation, and punishments of all kinds. As César Lorenzo and Carlota Falgueras explain in Trinitat. La presó de dones ignorada (1963-1983), from the outside the building could appear to be a kind of school: "It did not have the typical architectural attributes of prisons, but, inside, all testimonies agree in pointing out that the atmosphere was suffocating: a stronghold of the ultracatholic integralism that since 1939 had prevailed in women's prisons".

In total, the project of the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation of Barcelona planned the construction of 129 homes. These are subsidized housing units and have been a demand of the neighbors for many years. These homes will replace the apartments of the Patronato, built in the 1950s and full of dampness and cracks.