An old urban legend tells that a long, long time ago, in the place that was later occupied by the Can Batlló factory, there lived a beautiful woman who was often seen on top of a pile of rubble. She was so beautiful that the men of those lands only had eyes for that female with the enigmatic smile. But her evil and envious tongues said of her that she was a witch. The peasants of the neighboring farmhouses, perhaps forced by family pressures, raised their prayers for such a mysterious and feared woman to disappear. Her prayers were answered and she was never seen in those places again.
In that place a country house was built that became known as the Can Bruixa farmhouse. Today that construction in the Bordeta neighborhood, in the Sants-Montjuïc district, presents such a deteriorated appearance that it threatens ruin. He had all the numbers to perish executed by the pickaxe. And yet, Barcelona City Council, responding to the demands of the neighborhood, is willing to save it and give it a new life.
The City Council, in a decision that dates back to the days of the previous mayoress of Barcelona, ??Ada Colau, has tendered for just under 41,000 euros the drafting and direction of the comprehensive rehabilitation project of Can Bruixa. According to municipal sources, the forecast is that the drafting of the project will be awarded at the end of this year so that it is completed at the beginning of 2025.
The rehabilitation tasks of the farmhouse go on for a long time. The new government of Jaume Collboni has to define the investment priorities in the Municipal Investment Plan (PIM) of this mandate. However, it is the will of the local authorities to move forward with the rehabilitation of Can Bruixa so that it becomes a multipurpose space open to the neighborhood and integrated into the Can Batlló complex, currently under construction and on the way to becoming a large urban park . One of the options is for the restored building to house a space for the historical memory of the Bordeta neighborhood and the old municipality of Sants before it was annexed to Barcelona.
Can Bruixa, also known at times as Cal Paretó, is a rural building with a quadrangular floor plan, ground floor and first floor, from the second half of the 19th century. It is located, hidden, on a plot inside the Can Batlló enclosure, although its existence and the agricultural activity that took place in its area of ??influence predates the great textile factory, which was inaugurated in 1880. In fact, Can Bruixa is the only survivor of the successive phases of transformation of this end of the municipality of Barcelona and, in particular, of the sixties of the last century, when Franco’s developmentalism wiped out almost all the typical low houses of La Bordeta.
The property in which this building is located is a property owned by the Barcelona City Council without specific protection, but it does have a symbolic value that has prompted the protest action of some neighborhood entities that successfully mobilized to prevent its disappearance.
The past of Can (or Cal) Bruixa is shrouded in shadows as dark as the origins of the denomination that have survived to this day. Other more pedestrian versions, although no less reliable than the one starring the enigmatic woman, attribute the name of the farmhouse to one of its owners known as “en Bruixa”, who acquired it from a previous owner who was dedicated to growing and selling vegetables. .
