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The Republican Aviation and Air War Interpretation Center was promoted by various institutions and the Generalitat de Catalunya so that it would be a point of dissemination and socialization of knowledge about the history of Republican aviation and the development of the air war during the Civil War (1936-1939).
It was given such importance because in this conflict the first major air battles of the 20th century took place and the strategies and tactics of air warfare and total war were practiced for the first time.
CIARGA has been the first interpretation center in the Spanish State focused exclusively on the Air Forces of the Spanish Republic.
The physical space where CIARGA is located is the so-called Parc de la Mòria, which has about 850 m2 in the area of ??the main air raid shelter of the Els Monjos airfield, located in front of the Serral farmhouse and on some municipal land.
Next to CIARGA there is also the Serral shelter, one of the anti-aircraft shelters from the Civil War linked to the airfield that existed in the municipality during the conflict.
The Serral is the largest of the refuges that are preserved. It is located about 10 meters underground and has the capacity to house a hundred people.
The project includes two covered hangar-shaped spaces of about 160 m2 each. One is for the Interpretation Center and the other for temporary exhibitions and to museum a 1:1 scale Polikarpov I-15 Chato.
Currently, the first phase has been carried out and the Interpretation Center and the air raid shelter have been open to the public since 2010 and act as a reference point for the Penedès Memory Spaces and the Vesper de la Gloriosa Itinerary.
Outside there are two monuments of historical memory: one dedicated to the men and women related to the republican aviation and another to the victims of Franco’s bombings in the municipality, which is located in the southwest of the Alt Penedès region, in the border with that of Garraf.
