Three new windows pierce the walls of the famous Model Prison in Barcelona. “Más allá de los muros, la calle” was the text chosen to represent the historical mark that this building left on the city. A verse by Josep Domènech i Avellanet, poet and prisoner, shot by the Franco regime in 1942.

The intention of the project is to begin to open up this emblematic centre to the city, with a view to its transformation into a complex of public housing and green spaces. It is therefore also a look into the future. We propose to observe from outside the words that were once also prisoners of the person who wrote them. Now they jump over the walls, free, uncontrolled, like culture, as a gift to the city.

THE MODEL PRISON

The Men's Penitentiary Centre, also known as the "La Modelo" Prison, opened in 1904 and was a symbol of political repression for decades and a historical testimony of Barcelona. It is a unique architectural project, its complex has a radial floor plan with a central body covered with a dome and from which six naves converge, in a panoptic arrangement.

This centre ceased to operate completely on 8 June 2017, and is currently open to the public for free visits.

The model prison before the intervention.

«SUNDAY AFTERNOON» BY JOSEP DOMÈNECH I AVELLANET

The Model prison contains the stories of the hundreds of thousands of people who passed through its cells. One of these figures was the very young and unknown poet Josep Domènech i Avellanet, who at just 23 years old was imprisoned from 1939 to 1942 until he was finally shot. His girlfriend, Natàlia Sans, managed to rescue the texts that the author wrote during his captivity in the Model.

We have selected the powerful fragment “MÁS ALLÁ DE LOS MUROS, LA CALLE”, from the poem “Tarde de domingo”, in which the poet yearns for everything that happens outside the prison and desperately laments the languid passage of time behind bars.

We believe that these words can help us to quickly understand the reality of the prison. The phrase is parallel to the life of the building itself, which in the future will open up to the city, soaking up all the stimuli and cultural life of the streets of Barcelona.

«Tarde callada, tarde pensativa
de Invierno y Primavera mezcla.

El sol la alumbra; lluvias la besan.

Tarde sin alegría del viento,
tarde callada.

Sin golondrinas,
sin esperanzas.

Más allá de los muros, la calle;
ruta de silencios, somnolienta.

En los aleros de los tejados; pone la bruma matiz diverso.

Tarde sin luz
sabor a rancia
tarde pobre, gris y yerta.

Las rejas tienen reojos
y de sol ausencias.

Murmullos en la cárcel,
plantel de nuevas promesas.

Limosna para la semana,
fruto de falsas cosechas.

Ah! si todo aquí acabara…
Ah! si la última fuera…

Pero vendrán tantas otras
tristes tardes de paciencia…»

DESIGN

The intervention focuses on the outer courtyard of Module 4, on the surfaces of the walls and the floor. The work is designed to be observed from outside the prison, through windows made in the walls. The technique of anamorphosis allows us to create a play of perspectives with the walls of the courtyard by means of optical deformation. We divide the verse into three fragments, and superimpose the perspectives generated by the three points of view.

Diagram of the perspectives generated by the three different points of view.