The ringing of the mallets at La Forja del Terri blends with that of the Sords bell tower, like the beat of two worlds that are languishing, but which the three young men around the century-old anvil are determined to recover and modernise. They are, in their early thirties, Iu Gironès, Llorenç Rodríguez Astor and Jordi Roura Jou, new generation forgers, with no ancestors behind them. And since the beginning of the year they have also been members of a cooperative located in a farmhouse in Pla de l'Estany that has fire and iron as common denominators, but which seeks to go further: to reclaim rurality and craftsmanship as a way of life, as well as to recover and hand-make the tools of the old trades that are slowly being revived.

"Forging exists, it is a living trade, that is why I do not ask for support or subsidies, since we have been doing the same thing for 175 years," says Sergi Cadenas, fifth generation of a family dedicated to artistic forging in Girona since the mid-nineteenth century. His unique premises, Ferros de Arte Cadenas, crosses a block and connects Calle Nou (shop) with Calle Sant Francesc (forging). An activity that is a priori noisy and dirty but survives in the city centre. "I have filters above the regulations and the hammer mounted on a silencing block. I could start chopping from 8 in the morning, but I don't because I am aware that I am in the middle of a city. I have never received any complaints from the neighbours."