Municipal fonds

We keep the municipal records produced or received by local government bodies and municipal authority offices, past and present, within their geographic area.  

We manage and conserve municipal records from various historical periods:

• The fonds of the old municipality of Sant Joan d’Horta from 1766 until it was added to Barcelona in 1904.
• Barcelona City Council fonds, with records from 1930, although most date from 1984 as a result of the powers awarded to the district municipal councils that year.

We keep 24 linear metres of records conserved from the old Sant Joan d’Horta Council, from 1766 until it was added to Barcelona in 1904. The bulk of these documents belong to the period from 1820 to 1903, notably the minutes books and the sections on Population, Military Service and Urban Planning and Works The wealth and quality of its architectural plans tell us of an area and an urban structure that has largely disappeared.

We also have documents from the District Executive and the central areas of the Francoist City Council from 1962 to 1973, as well as the District Municipal Council following the re-establishment of a democratic City Council in 1979.

Finally, we should also mention the documents from the current period, which began with the decentralisation and citizen participation project in 1984, and the new territorial division of Barcelona into ten districts. The biggest series and most consulted by members of the public are business activity licences, licences for major and minor works, and urban development projects.

Private fonds

The Horta-Guinardó District Municipal Archives include the fonds of Felip Capdevila i Rovira, an Horta historian who compiled documents of on various subjects relating to life in the neighbourhood. One highlight is the 1,044 old photographs on aspects such as transport or farmhouses and the most emblematic parts of the old Horta-Guinardó.

Also of great cultural interest is the Foment Hortenc fonds, consisting of photographic positives up to 1965, when the Foment dissolved itself. It consists of 578 photographs taken by former members of its Photography Section, which was set up in 1953 by Emili Reguant and Ángel Pérez, among others.

Other interesting photographic fonds include that of Jaume Caminal Serret (from 1940 to 2002), which shows how the Horta-Guinardó district changed between the second half of the 20th and the early years of the 21st centuries.

Collections

We have a good selection of posters and handbills produced by both the municipal authorities and district associations and other entities.

We also have an auxiliary library, as well as magazines and periodicals produced in Horta-Guinardó which, in many cases, have come from residents’ associations and other entities.

If you want to find out all the information we have at the Horta-Guinardó Archives, consult the fonds table.