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Catalan Manchester, Europe’s largest factory district… Everyone in Barcelona knows, badly or well, the industrial past of the Poblenou. But the factories of Barcelona were not concentrated only in that neighborhood, and there was a time when they spread throughout much of the city, becoming real manufacturing centers beyond the famous Poblenou.
This is the unknown case of Fort Pienc. The neighborhood straddling Sant Martí de Provençals and the city of Barcelona, surrounding what is now the North Station, was a strategic place to locate factories and companies since the mid-nineteenth century.
Now, the exhibition “El Fort Pienc Industrial. S. XIX – S. XX” of the Arxiu Històric Fort Pienc has recovered that memory rescuing the history of about 300 companies, with graphic and documentary material that helps to understand this period.
Thus, it is discovered that the proximity to the Nord station, which at that time was a train station, facilitated the reception and shipment of goods and the fact that for historical reasons an important part of the land in the neighborhood was still undeveloped farmland and the passage of the Rec Comtal, which crossed part of the territory, helped to establish a large number of companies of very diverse branches.
The archive has also had the help of neighbors who, sometimes, as Betevé explains, are heirs of companies that were born at the time and are still in operation (although outside the neighborhood) as Laurendor, which began in 1936 or Aldrufeu Hermanos, a gardening that still survives.
The exhibition can be seen at the Fort Pienc Civic Center until July 17.