“Igual que en cueva o castillo mágico todo iba a cambiar en aquel sitio todo iba a cambiar porque en el sueño las cosas imposibles ocurren facilmente”. José Agustín Goytisolo, Walden, 1977
[context]
On the 15th of January, 1917 was set up a Cement Factory in Sant Just Desvern, because of its proximity to Barcelona, the port and the calcareous reserves at Santa Creu d’Olorda.
In 1921 the manufacture of Portland cement was a daily production of 150 T.
In 1924 the company built the tallest chimney in urope, of 102 meters high. With this construction, the following year production reached 110.000 metric tones.
During the 1936-1939 Civil War, a workers control committee from the CNT/UGT was set up. The factory was considered as a war industry in order to guarantee the manufacture of cement for fortifications. The Generalitat (Catalunya’s government) supplied the finance.
Surprisingly the factory was never bombed.
After the war, the production was rapidly commenced and in 1947 the company began to manufacture products prefabricated in concrete. In 1949 commenced the manufacture of natural cement (5.000 metric tones per year).
At the beginning of the sixties it produced 260.000 metric tones of Portland cement.
The increase in the production of the factory in the sixties gave rise to a neighborhood protest. In 1964 the Ley de Asociaciones (Associations Law) permitted the existence of the Neighbours Association of Sant Just Desvern, wich quickly organized a campaign against the smoke and contamination of the factory.
The pressure made by the Sant Just town council and the majority of the neighbours convinced the company to move, and it was progressively abandoned until their final sale to the Taller d’Arquitectura directed by Ricardo Bofill in 1970. In 1972 began the construction of the Walden 7.
At that time, the sixties, Catalunya was faced with the problems of its own poor, plus the new poor who were pouring into Barcelona and the rest of Catalunya from all the corners of Spain, mostly from the south: Andalucía and Múrcia. And the fascist Government of Spain quickly began the construction of what they called ‘social housing’. All this kind of emergency architecture and urbanism was constructed with speculation as the main used material.
The Taller d’Arquitectura was resolutely against these appartment blocks, shoe boxes, wich began to proliferate in our urban countryside. They detested the idea that a few blocks oriented towards the south with minimum surface areas were sufficient reply to the real problem of society.
They wanted to integrate all classes in the city.
This was the Walden 7 idea: no segregation but integration.
