The lecturer Núria Ricart, co-author of the awarded project to remember the Women Prison in les Corts
On October 10, the proposal that won the contest the Barcelona City Council launched was announced. The contest was about the design for the memorial space in the Women Prison in les Corts. The winning team is formed by Núria Picart, lecturer of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona; Jordi Henrich, architect, and Fernando Hernández Holgado, historian and coordinator of the project Memòria Presó de les Corts. This commemorative set that remembers the existence of the jail in this place until 1955 responds to the reivindication by civil society which has been fighting to recover the memory of this repression place for women, many of them jailed due political issues.
On October 10, the proposal that won the contest the Barcelona City Council launched was announced. The contest was about the design for the memorial space in the Women Prison in les Corts. The winning team is formed by Núria Picart, lecturer of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona; Jordi Henrich, architect, and Fernando Hernández Holgado, historian and coordinator of the project Memòria Presó de les Corts. This commemorative set that remembers the existence of the jail in this place until 1955 responds to the reivindication by civil society which has been fighting to recover the memory of this repression place for women, many of them jailed due political issues.
The public presentation of this project took place as part of Festa Major de les Corts. Among the attendants were Maria Victòria Garcia, from the Group of Women Elisanda de Montcada, and Jordi Guixé, director of the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) from Solidaritat UB Foundation -both representing the Plataforma Futur Moment a la Presó de Dones de les Corts; Ricard Vinyes, commissioner for memory programs in the Barcelona City Council, and Agustí Colom, councillor of the district les Corts.
A memory space in the middle of urban environment
This proposal gives continuity to the reivindications of the participative process launched in 2013 with the platform Plataforma Futur Monument a la Presó de les Dones de les Corts. The project proposes creating a public space covering the area where the former prison was.
The current totems will be permanent and will be the commemorative support of the project. The floor will be paved with basalt and there will be a minimalist monument, built by six big stones from different areas of the Peninsula. The research, selection, management and arrangement of the stones will be done collectively as a symbolic action, intending to grow the network of memorial and civic associations interested in recovering the memory of women during the Franco regime. For the artists, this is a key element of the project, which goes with the dynamics of the participation, and expands the memorial to the diverse origins of all women prisoners, following the evolution of the Civil War. On the ground and the stones, there will be some inscriptions about historical data on how women prison was during the Franco regime, as well as geological information about the stones. The project includes a new set of trees and special lights. Regarded as an open space, the idea of this project is to bring people to the reality this place represented.
The project was chosen by a jury formed by technicians from the Department of Urban Architecture and Heritage, from the Barcelona City Council; the Department of Memory and History of the Barcelona Institute of Culture, and the District of les Corts. A total of five projects were submitted to this contest. Apart from the artistic content, other criteria to assess was the consideration of the memory of victims and prisoners, limitation of the use of technologies, the impact in the urban environment, and viability to carry it out.
The project will cost 202,696.04 euros, which will be funded by the Commissioner of Programs on Memory and the District of les Corts. Its construction is expected to start in January 2019, and it will have a length of about six months.
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