The group developing the monument to the former Women Prison of Les Corts receives the Barcelona Medal of Honour

A moment during a tribute to women imprisoned at the former Women Prison of Les Corts that took place the last April.
A moment during a tribute to women imprisoned at the former Women Prison of Les Corts that took place the last April.
(25/06/2015)

The group developing the monument that pays tribute to the former Women Prison of Les Corts has received the Medal of Honour of the Barcelona City Council. The University of Barcelona (UB) participates in the group by means of the Polis Research Centre: Art, City, Society, the masterʼs degree in Urban Design and the European Observatory of Memories of the UB Solidarity Foundation. This award-winning initiative —co-developed by the UB and the Associació per la Cultura i la Memòria de Catalunya (ACME, Association for Catalan Culture and Memory)— aims at recovering the historical memory of the Women Prison of Les Corts, hidden for more than sixty years. In order to achieve this goal, citizens are invited to collaborate with neighbourhood associations to discuss the creation of the monument that will remember the prison.

 

A moment during a tribute to women imprisoned at the former Women Prison of Les Corts that took place the last April.
A moment during a tribute to women imprisoned at the former Women Prison of Les Corts that took place the last April.
25/06/2015

The group developing the monument that pays tribute to the former Women Prison of Les Corts has received the Medal of Honour of the Barcelona City Council. The University of Barcelona (UB) participates in the group by means of the Polis Research Centre: Art, City, Society, the masterʼs degree in Urban Design and the European Observatory of Memories of the UB Solidarity Foundation. This award-winning initiative —co-developed by the UB and the Associació per la Cultura i la Memòria de Catalunya (ACME, Association for Catalan Culture and Memory)— aims at recovering the historical memory of the Women Prison of Les Corts, hidden for more than sixty years. In order to achieve this goal, citizens are invited to collaborate with neighbourhood associations to discuss the creation of the monument that will remember the prison.

 

The Women Prison of Les Corts was located at the Avinguda Diagonal, at the Plaça de la Reina Maria Cristina. Between 1939 and 1955, thousands of women were imprisoned and eleven prisoners were shot in the prison during the cruellest years of Franco's dictatorship. Repression was not only political and social, but also moral and gender-based. Women were treated as hysterical people who were unable to take on the domestic role assigned to them. Nowadays, the prison does not exist and the place is occupied by a popular shopping centre. The former prison is only remembered by a plaque that does not make any reference to the dictatorship.