Somorrostro quarter

Hospital del Mar

We walk past the Hospital del Mar, one of the main hospitals in the city. The place where now there is a modern building, one of the pioneers in research hospitals in the twentieth century it housed one of the slums of Barcelona, called the Somorrostro.
 

Somorrostro (1950-60)

The huts were on the beach between what was the old Hospital of Infectious Diseases and the now defunct gasworks Lebon Poble Nou. This quarter of baroques extended to the Bogatell stream.

It seems that Somorrostro is mentioned as from 1882, but its use was not effective until 1914. In 1915 there were some 1,400 cabins, with about 18,000 inhabitants. There is a theory that the name comes from Somorrostro, the traditional name of a Biscayan Village, which could have been carried by Basque fishermen who may have settled in the neighborhood in the mid-nineteenth century.

Somorrostro (1950-60)

A large part of barracks had no running water, no electricity, no sewage system, there were some very poor living conditions, and often the sea flooded homes. It was also used as a rubbish dump.

At first, these districts also had schools, dispensaries or utilities. The shanty had to fight hard to improve the harsh living conditions.

The neighborhood disappeared in 1966, coinciding with the visit of Francisco Franco in Barcelona to see naval maneuvers. At first the people were taken to the homes of the Home Building Association, however, had to be years until they started to become estates to rehouse all the inhabitants of these huts and often new buildings were built in a hurry with disabilities, and remote and poorly connected, as Prat de Llobregat Trinidad. So the inhabitants of the slums instability lasted for three decades until they began to be integrated neighborhoods in the city.

Somorrostro's demolition (1965)

Most people in the shacks were immigrants who arrived between 1950 and the late 60's from all over Spain and inland Catalonia. The huts arose spontaneously, built by the same people who arrived in the Catalan city, were not home. These huts were spread along the coast, the hills and the empty lots. Their inhabitants were workers and integrated into urban life, but lived in the neighborhood unattended. For years they lived supporting repressive measures and discrimination, and living with the fear that their homes could be destroyed.

These years were very hard times, but it seems as if the city had chosen to forget maybe because it belongs to a problematic episode in its continuous evolution.