With the rise of Nazism, the photographer of Jewish and Polish origin Margaret Michaelis (Dziedzice, Poland, 1902 - Melbourne, Australia, 1985) left Berlin and decided to go into exile in the Barcelona of the Second Republic. Three months later the Grup d'Arquitectes i Tècnics Catalans per al Progrés de l'Arquitectura Contemporània (GATCPAC) hired her to make a photoreport of Barcelona's Barri Xino (red-light district). She had to photograph the bowels of the neighbourhood and show the insalubrity, the lack of infrastructures, the worn out pipes... For an exhibition that was held in the basement of Plaça Catalunya to justify the need to carry out the Macià plan, also known as the Nova Barcelona plan. Michaelis, however, went further. "She approached people, gained their trust and photographed them in these spaces", says Dolors Rodríguez Roig, art historian and curator of the exhibition Margaret Michaelis. Cinc dies pel Barri Xino, which can be seen at the Photographic Archive of Barcelona (AFB) until 31 October. The Nova Barcelona plan was never executed but the intimacy of the houses in those narrow streets has been able to reach us thanks to the snapshots of this woman with a curious gaze.