Remembrance Strategies. Barcelona, 1977-2013

Abstract

Heritage and public art management regarding the Spanish 2nd Republic (1931-1939), Civil War (1936-1939) and Franco Dictatorship (1939-1975) periods develop different strategies, between 1977 and 2013 in the city of Barcelona. The political and social complexity associated with these periods is reflected in the continuities and discontinuities of different lines of action taken by the city council. These lines are organized around three themes: the recovery of monuments previously removed and / or modified under Franco dictatorship; elimination and / or substitution of symbols and monuments of dictatorship; and the homage of democracy to the victims of dictatorship. This way of acting contrasts with the policy developed in the last decade – the so called period of “historical memory”- , when the council opts for the total elimination of remaining Franco’s monuments, though with no fascist symbolism. In this exercise, suppression has not followed a clear policy to generate a new monumentality or new public space, resulting in the production of no-memory spaces. This strategy contrasts with the policy pursued at the regional level through the development of dignity and signage projects of so-called "memory spaces" by the Democratic Memorial of the Generalitat de Catalunya since 2008 until 2011, before its current state of ineffectiveness.