The great treasure of Poblenou reaches its half-century mark

BarcelonaPoblenou's identity has been forged through hard work, amidst the steam from the boilers and the rumble of the shuttles, but also through a neighborhood struggle that began in the final years of the dictatorship—a legacy of many other struggles by the workers of the Catalan Manchester—and through the most radical urban transformation Barcelona has experienced in recent years. This was especially true from the 1980s onward, with the Olympic Games on the horizon. To understand this, one only needs to explore the neighborhood's greatest treasure, which is also one of the city's most valuable.

It is thePoblenou Historical Archive (AHPN)The private, non-profit organization reaches its half-century mark in 2026, an enviable cultural milestone, born from the initiative of three students – Rosa Maria Castany, Josep Maria Carreras and Lluís Berenguer – with the aim of recovering the collective memory and history of the neighborhood, which was looked down upon during the Franco regime.

All of this was at risk of being lost, and the three young people began "keeping photographs in a shoebox," recall Jordi's current board president, Antonia Casulleres, a secondary school Geography and History teacher, and Pepa Martínez Cabanyes, a librarian, in a conversation with ARA at the archive's headquarters (the Torre de les Aigües del Besòs, in Plaça de Ramon Calsina, Barcelona).

The three are just the tip of the iceberg of some thirty highly committed volunteers at the AHPN who carry out the work of preserving and disseminating a documentary heritage—graphic, written, and oral—that, despite its unevenness, has exceptional value.

The volunteers dedicate hours of their free time to a task that, in other countries, might be in the hands of public institutions or financially compensated by them, they lament. "While in Northern Europe cultural volunteers are considered honorable men and women, and receive institutional support that financially values ​​their time contribution, here the feeling is often one of preaching in the desert. In Germany, they would pay us for every hour we work; here we're just romantics who pay to work," says Fossas. These are hours like those they dedicate, on average, to a minimum of two in-person visits per week—according to the 2025 activity report—in addition to maintaining a very comprehensive website and answering emails. This group of enthusiasts, persevering against all odds, has taken up the mantle from other pioneers, people like Nicasi Camps and Pinós, Manuel Arranz, and the journalist and mentor of journalists. Josep Maria Huertas Claveria, one of the most tireless popularizers of the history of Barcelona's neighborhoods – in collaboration with Jaume Fabre – and especially of his own neighborhood. The organization has around 300 members who contribute with an annual fee of 30 euros. The archive receives a meager municipal subsidy – less than 6,000 euros – which "barely covers the cleaning of the premises." AHPN does not have to pay for electricity, but it does have to pay for the telephone.

The May Flower, Can Felipa and the tower

That first shoebox quickly became too small. Because soon it held not only photographs, but also papers and all kinds of documents—personal, family, and business. In its half-century of history, the archive has moved through several locations, some more precarious than others—the Ateneu Flor de Maig or the space on the second floor of the Can Felipa Civic Center (1991–2021)—until finally finding its permanent home: the aforementioned and majestic building. Besòs Water Tower, where he moved in 2021.

The tower, built between 1880 and 1882, rises some sixty meters above what is now Ramon Calsina Square. Initially intended as part of a private project to improve the water supply to a city then undergoing rapid industrial growth, it became part of the grounds of the Can Girona foundry, later (1922) renamed Material y Construcciones (Macosa). Thus, for decades the tower—which housed three anti-aircraft batteries during the Civil War—was surrounded by warehouses and industrial facilities, making it almost invisible to the people of Barcelona. Much like the waterfront of that corner of the city. That the Poblenou Historical Archive now has its headquarters there is almost an act of historical justice. From atop a brick vantage point, the organization's volunteers not only safeguard documents and over 19,000 digitized photographs, but also, to the best of their ability, watch over the future of a neighborhood that has transformed from the black of coal and chimney smoke to the gleaming glass of modern buildings. The volunteers organize guided tours. Not counting open house days, there were 56 tours last year, attended by 440 people. They also publish an annual magazine. Icaria, with an editorial board headed by journalist Maria Favà, a specialist for decades in political and municipal news in Barcelona in the pages ofTodayand author of several books, including a monograph on the Poblenou Alliance. The latest issue ofIcariaThe report, published at the end of last year, was dedicated to housing and will be presented at headquarters on the 5th. A good portion of the 26 that have been published can be consulted Free on the AHPN website.

The dynamic between past and present, between history and future, is reflected not only in this publication, but also in one of the most visually and documentarily valuable tools offered by the archive, accessible to everyone with a click, like most of the documentary collections, since not all are yet digitized. It is its cartographic applicationIt's little less than "a journey through time," as Fossas describes it, tracing the urban transformation of the neighborhood, with a superimposition of Barcelona's famous grid pattern onto the actual layout of streets, plots of land, and passageways at specific points in time. This allows us to grasp the planned development and the slow process of urban fabric transformation as the city's surface mutated and adapted to it.

Thus, one can observe, for example, what a plot of land looked like in 1827, how Cerdà's grid plan grew and spread across the farmland in 1945, or what a particular area looked like before the Diagonal Avenue finally made its way to the sea. It's a very useful widget for researchers and students, but also for anyone who wants to know what their home or surroundings looked like before speculation and time changed the appearance of their everyday environment. The application, quite simply, has nothing to envy—quite the opposite, in fact—in other applications. Historical Charter of Barcelona, from the Barcelona History Museum.

If navigating the map can become a fascinating stroll through Poblenou and its architectural and urban history, revolver the photographic archive It's like encountering an incredibly rich community, leaving you speechless at a myriad of images that are both everyday and extraordinary. To give just a few examples: the shacks of Somorrostro in the 1940s, Pekín beach (a sub-section of Somorrostro) in 1917, the Icaria neighborhood in the 1970s, the celebrations of the Fiesta Mayor, or, of course, the great and now unimaginable snowfall of 2019; the history of one of Poblenou's most emblematic institutions, the aforementioned Casino de la Alianza. All of this offers a multidimensional view of the neighborhood's history, which, in practice, in some cases extends far beyond its borders. A good example is photograph 24674, from 1941, which shows the construction of the bridge over the Ebro River in Móra d'Ebre. Made of concrete, but with a metal structure, it was built by the workers of the Torras Foundry and Construction Company (1882-1988), whose headquarters were located at number 49.

The archive is not limited to images. It also safeguards a rich oral history, the result of donations and personal contributions from residents of the neighborhood. These include memoirs of textile workers, witnesses of the Civil War, and stories about the harsh life in the Cáñamo prison, some of which can be read in the aforementioned PDFs of the magazine issues. Icariaor Antonio Galindo's personal account of life in the Pekín neighborhood. As Maria Antònia Casulleres and Pepa Martínez say, in the archive "we touched all the keys."

In this half-century, AHPN has seen how the profile of its users has changed. It is no longer only consulted by neighbors interested in the history of their factory or their family. Now, the Torre de las Aguas receives film, architecture, and urban planning students from all over the world, a reflection of the local and global population that the 22@ district has attracted. The range of inquiries is as broad as the history it holds. It ranges from those who want to know what life was like in the extension of the Modelo prison (the El Cáñamo factory), opened after the Civil War on property ceded by the Godó family to the Francoist state, to researchers interested in the same factory, collectivized between 1936 and 1939. Or, to mention other topics the bombings in Poblenou And, of course, the impact of the Olympic Games.

The challenge for the Poblenou Historical Archive over the next 50 years is, perhaps, generational succession. "It's a topic that concerns us, as it does in most volunteer organizations," says Maria Antònia Casulleres. Members under 30 and 40 are a "very small" group, but some are on the board and are "excellent collaborators in managing networks, the calendar, coordinating visits, guiding, and acquiring documents," she assures. From this perspective, the archive is, or can also be, a meeting point for different generations and for memories of the past, present, and future.