El Parc de Las Colonias

The long awaited park has opened! We have lived the 25 year process of redevelopment, cheek by jowl, from first intentions to demolish a small barrio of workers houses created a hundred years ago to house immigrants from the rest of Spain needed to build the expanding Barcelona and also work in the many factories in this area, in order to create a new green space for the barrio.

Strong feelings accompanied the breaking up of this community which harboured anti-Franco sentiment during the dictatorship with many neighbours getting jail terms for dissent. All those dislodged were rehoused in small scale apartment blocks nearby, clearly not the same but not without some merit as most houses in Las Colonias failed to meet the needs of growing families these days.

We like the new park and its intention to echo the industrial feel of the place with girders, adorned with the original passage way names, delineating the original cross streets.

We will blip more from here, for sure, as we did in the declining years of the area in my facade series, as the old barrio disappeared.

For now, a thumbs up for this new civic space which, as taxpayers during the last 33 years, we feel we have contributed to and which will be a boon to our around the block experience.

Some of my thumbnails from the past:

Second row down middle is the same facade as the one that features here!

https://www.blipfoto.com/search/entries?q=Colonias+by+barrioboy