Teachers at the Massana School of Art and Design in Plaça de la Gardunya want the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni to return to the center the municipal offices of their former headquarters occupied on the night of Sant Joan 2020. It is about the pink painted building in front of the new school. The last trigger for the discomfort of a large part of the cloister is the loss of twenty pieces of its heritage stored in these spaces since before they were occupied.
As reported by the Massana archivist to the police, some boxes were broken. We are talking about plates, handkerchiefs and other commemorative objects, old works of teachers without outstanding value, but which are part of the history of this center of the Raval. The squatters always told the teachers that they could come whenever they wanted to take whatever they needed, but the teachers complained afterwards that they were not given as much facilities. “When we arrived this room was already very disorganized – answer the squatters. We put a padlock and told the teachers to collect everything they needed”.
Mayor Ada Colau’s executive announced a year ago that it would cede these spaces to the entities that usurped them, as they carry out social activities in the neighborhood. The old Massana was occupied in search of space by people distributing food during the hardest moments of the pandemic. But the negotiations between the City Council and the squatters broke down shortly before the municipal elections. The Colau government wanted to give these facilities eight years and the squatters claimed 50, as in Can Batlló.
After the elections, the squatters made it known that they would not give up these old classrooms no matter who ruled, that in the old Massana they would continue to plan how to stop evictions, giving private lessons to children in conflict, opening their gym to the whole neighborhood. “The transfer of the old Massana was approved in a plenary session of the district – they add. We will try to resume talks in September. We also have our weight in the neighborhood.”
The teachers of La Massana who are opposed to this occupation understand for their part that they cannot waste the change of municipal government, that the squatter-friendly spirit of the communes has nothing to do with the rejection of the socialists by the squatters. However, the new executive is in no rush to deal with this situation. There is already enough commotion with the evictions of El Kubo and La Ruïna, on the other side of the city, in front of Plaça de la Bonanova. Sources from the Ciutat Vella district, a district now led by deputy mayor Albert Batlle, who is also responsible for municipal security, point out that the City Council intends to reconsider the future of the entire Sant Pau hospital site very soon. The sources do not only refer to the old Massana, they also talk about the gardens of Rubió and Lluch.
The previous councilor of Ciutat Vella, the commoner Jordi Rabassa, ruled out demolishing the wall of the old Massana that separates the gardens and the square. The squatters oppose this demolition because they would lose the yard where they carry out many activities. It is an old municipal project that sought to unite and oxygenate the gardens and the school. In this way, the presence of students on both sides of the Gardunya would contribute to revitalizing an area where mainly tourists and drug addicts coexist.
