Popular housing in Barcelona Ensanche

Abstract

During the first third of the XXth century an important number of "pasillos" (or corridors) where built in the most popular neighbourhoods of Barcelona's Extension (Ensanche), in other neighbourhoods of the city and the metropolitan area. The "pasillos" is a popular residential typology that receives this name because it is organized around a corridor or patio to which a series of minimum housing open up. This paper will focuss on those built in the so called "Left of the Ensanche", an area that at that time still presented agricultural spaces and a considerable presence of factories. In this part of the Ensanche the corridors occupied the interior of the several plants rent buildings dedicated to medium-low classes. They provided minimum standard housing (w.c., laundry, water) in a moment when the strong immigration increased the demand for housings and the price of the rents. On the other hand, the construction of these corridors also gave place to a strong densification and the transformation of Ildefonso Cerda’s proposals on the use of the block's interior.