The exhibition «LIVE IN MONTJUÏC. Memories of a forgotten shanty town”, curated by Oriol Granados, Francesc Banús and Rafel Usero, shows testimonies of former Montjuïc shanty town inhabitants ..
From the collective memory of the former shantytowns, the exhibition highlights the history and the role of shantytowns in post-war Barcelona, and in particular, the reality of the shantytowns located in the Montjuïc mountain.
Throughout the 20th century, Barcelona became a magnet for many people wishing to improve their quality of life. It was a city undergoing constant transformation, where work and opportunities were readily available. This resulted in great waves of migration to a city where it was easier to find a job than it was to find a place to live.
The lack of sufficient housing for the waves of migrants who moved to the city during the 20th century meant that shanty towns became commonplace. This presented the city with a serious problem: although the authorities strove to eradicate these slum settlements, to a certain extent they also tolerated them, due to the fact that the labour provided by the slum-dwellers was beneficial to the city’s development.