Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

The latest session by the Street Naming Commission on 18 July gave initial approval to the names for new spaces in the city. They included eight women’s names for new streets, squares and gardens, plus three information panels and a historical memory plaque.

The street name proposals have different origins, from the districts and areas of the City Council to organisations, associations, community groups and public bodies that make the case for individuals, organisations or others to be included on the municipal street name index.

The names approved in the latest session are:

• Jardins de Montserrat Minobis, in L’Eixample: (Figueres, 1942 – Barcelona, 2019). Journalist, director of Catalunya Ràdio, deacon of the Association of Journalists (2001-2004), chair of the European Network of Women Journalists and the Catalan Association of Women Journalists. Awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi in 1996.
• Jardins de Concepció Callao, in L’Eixample: (Barcelona, 1895-1959). Opera singer trained at the Conservatori de Barcelona, where she completed her studies in 1912. As a contralto, she became very famous for her collaboration with Catalan composers and her Wagnerian performances.
• Plaça de la Bassa de Torre Baró, in Nou Barris: the name comes from the denomination that local people gave to a space where a pond once provided local children with a place to play in. The Neighbourhood Plan project “En obert” dignified this space, with street furniture and a mural, with the assembly of local residents requesting the space to be given this name.
• Plaça de Can Sitjar, in Nou Barris: Can Sitjar was a country house in the lower part of the Vall d’Horta, in the little neighbourhood of Santa Eulàlia de Vilapicina. The spot was first recognised in 1777 and the house became very popular from 1786, when the owners, the Marquesos de Castellbell, used it to create a space for social gatherings, discussion and illustrated cultural dining, During this period it was known as the “Col·legi de la Bona Vida”.
• Jardins d’Encarnació Coromina, in Sant Andreu: (Os de Balaguer, 1848 – Barcelona, 1916). Manuela Coromina Agustí was born into a framing family in the county of La Noguera. A nun by vocation, she and Father Manyanet founded the Escola Mare de Déu dels Àngels, in La Sagrera, the oldest institution in the neighbourhood, with 125 years of history. Today the centre is a mixed school.
• Passatge de Pilar Santiago, in Sant Andreu: (Barruelo de Santullán (Palència), 1914 – Barcelona, 1998). A teacher by profession, Santiago joined the POUM when the Spanish Civil War broke out. She was detained and sent to the women’s prison in Les Corts until 1938, when she fled to France, and later to Mexico. She was part of “Les dones del 36”, an association that fought for the memory of women who suffered Francoist repression.
• Park and information panel in memory of Neus Català, in Sant Andreu: (Els Guiamets, 1915-2019). During the Civil War, Català was involved in the anti-fascist struggle and later formed part of the resistance in France after the war. She was detained by the Nazis in 1943 and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, from which she was the last Catalan survivor. She died in 2019 at the age of 103.
• Jardins d’Hilda Agostini, in Sant Martí: (Tarragona, 1890 – Paris, 1976). A teacher by profession, Agostini worked in several schools in Barcelona, including the Escola Montessori Municipal La Casa dels Nens. A free thinker, feminist and republican, she was forced to go into exile in France after the Civil War to escape repression.
• Jardins de Pepita i Elisa Úriz Pi, in Sant Martí: teachers and educators, the Úriz Pi sisters are considered the forerunners to modern schooling in Spain. They also created the Union of Anti-Fascist Women in 1934. At the end of the Civil War they fled to France, from where they were expelled in 1951 for their communist militancy. Both sisters died in exile in Berlin.
• Jardins de Núria Pompeia (Núria Vilaplana Boixons), in Sant Martí: (Barcelona, 1931-2016). Artist, graphic humourist, journalist and writer, Pompeia was a pioneer in feminist comics. Her works reflect collective experiences to denounce the discrimination suffered by women in all walks of life, as she highlighted in Mujercitas (1975).  She also collaborated as a puppeteer and chronicler in various publications.

Information panels and plaques

• Historical memory information panel for the Casal de la Pau de Barcelona, in Ciutat Vella (Carrer de Cervantes, 2): inspired by the Maison de la Paix in Brussels, the building was inaugurated on 23 March 1977 and became the main meeting point for pacifism, anti-militarism and non-violence in Barcelona. It became a place of inspiration for many collective struggles for justice and social well-being.
• Historical information panel for the first blood bank, in Sants-Montjuïc (Passeig de Santa Madrona, 45-51): the building currently housing the Cartographic Institute was the home of Emergency Hospital 18, where the first blood donor bank and the first transfusion service in the world were established, launched by the doctor Frederic Duran i Jordà (Barcelona, 1905 – Manchester, 1957).
• Plaque in memory of Víctor Nubla, in Gràcia (Carrer de Milà i Fontanals, 45): musician, composer, writer, multi-disciplinary artist and cultural manager, Nubla was an essential figure in experimental music in Europe. He was the joint founder of one the leading groups in the music industry in Barcelona, Macromassa, and launched the association Gràcia Territori Sonor and the LEM festival.