Santiago Gorostiza
Cooperative Neighbourhoods. Conflict, history and the building of new connectivities in Sants and La Bordeta, Barcelona
In recent years the neighbourhood of Sants has developed a vigorous cooperative movement involving several projects such as consumption and housing cooperatives, an architecture office, bookshops and bars, among others. Starting at the Can Vies squatted social centre, next to one of Barcelona’s newest (and controversial) green spaces, this tour will take us through several present and past struggles of the neighbourhood, and to the historical roots of its cooperative movement. It will finish in Can Batlló, a former industrial complex taken over in part by a neighbourhood movement after 30 years of struggle, now home to the housing cooperative La Borda being built under sustainability principles – the first of its kind in Spain – and several other community projects.