Can 60 is a building with a strong historical significance: one of the 38 “housing-factory” workshops of Raval old city neighbourhood, where the factories were placed before the demolition of the city walls in the XIXth C and their displacement to the east of the city. Can 60 exemplifies a specific typology of building: a block with a ring of housing (for the workers) plus a central void where the warehouse and productive spaces where placed. In 2015, Can 60 contained housing and a number of cultural activities. However, the whole block happened to have been bought by a foreign investment group, which aimed to demolish the factory and turn it into luxury flats for tourists. That would have had a negative impact in a neighbourhood through the loss of heritage and gentrificacion.
We drawed the cartography of the material heritage (the typological building) that contained and supported an immaterial heritage: a number of cultural institutions and associations that had a significant contribution to culture both local and international. We claimed that if the building disappeared all the immaterial heritage will be lost and with it, all the ties with the social fabric in which Can 60 stands would be broken.
With the collaboration with other associations that were already working in place we approached each of the users individually to understand their conditions. This process revealed that they were not united. We designed a short-term and a mid-term strategy to “save Can 60”. The short-term strategy consisted in preparing an exhibition taking advantage of the celebration of Festas del Raval, exposing the production of Can 60 – what would be lost – and to open the hermetic building to the neighbourhood to visualize the problem. The long-time strategy consisted in the cataloguing of the building as one of the last remains of house-factory typology within the city and to produce arguments and graphical evidence in order to convince the administration to preserve the building.
After a long process of negotiation, in September 2016, the municipality bought the building, which is now under the process of being converted into a public civic centre. Moreover, all the housing-factories of Raval were listed and will be preserved as part of the urban and typological heritage of the city. That could only be possible through a collective effort of many people and associations.
