The publication “Badalona sota les bombes. 1937-1938” on line

On this day, exactly 85 years ago, Badalona experienced one of the most dramatic episodes in its history. From 9:55 a.m., the Aviazione Legionaria from Italy , an ally of the Francoist army, began bombing the city. It was not the first time that Badalona, considered a target of great strategic value due to its industrial importance, received Italian bombs. And it wouldn’t be the last either… but, on no other occasion would the balance be as fateful as that day.

Five Italian Savoia S-79 planes dropped 80 bombs of 100 kilos and 40 of 20 kilos, mainly on the Progrés neighborhood. The consequences of that action were catastrophic. On a material level, more than a hundred houses were destroyed and several factories, such as Can Badrinas, la Cros, la Campsa, el Gas or la Llauna, suffered significant damage. On a personal level, the effects would be even more dramatic: 65 people lost their lives and 200 were seriously injured.

Joan Villarroya i Font from Badalona, professor of contemporary history at the UB, recovered the memory of this bombing and that of all those our city received during the conflict in an essential book, Badalona sota les bombes. 1937-1938, published by the Museum in 2017. This publication is currently out of print but, given its interest, we wanted to make it available to everyone, now in digital format, on our website.

We hope this reading will be of interest to you.

 

DOWNLOAD BOOK

 

Publicació Badalona sota les bombes 1937-1938

Donation of the documentation produced by the PSUC and IC to the AHBDN

The documentation produced by the PSUC (Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunay) between 1976 and 1987 and IC (Iniciativa per Catalunya) from its creation in 1987 to 2016 has recently been donated to the Historical Archive of the City of Badalona.

The PSUC fund is made up of 19 installation units and has an extension of 1.90 linear metres. And the IC fund consists of 27 installation units and 2.70 linear meters. Both funds are available to researchers and scholars.

The work of selection and inventory has been carried out by a team of former militants of the two organizations led by the Historical Archive of the City.

 

 

Save the date for a new edition of the Museum’s Summer Nights!

Once again, the Museum offers you the chance to welcome – and celebrate! – the summer with a refreshing combination of heritage and music. The setting is unbeatable and unrepeatable: the Anis del Mono factory. A space full of history, art and anecdotes that will captivate you and transport you to the era of industrialization, a period of economic growth that would give rise to the modernist movement -one of the most significant in the history of Catalonia-, and which transformed our way of understanding the world.

In this edition we propose three nights, with completely different repertoires, which you can enjoy quietly in the cool of the patio.

Friday July 7th. Anthus Quintet. Love! Tribute to Nat King Cole
Friday July 14th. Canela N’ Drama
Friday July 21. Ellas Band

Ticket price: €15. Maximum 4 tickets per person.
The ticket includes the guided tour of the factory and the concert.

For capacity reasons, entrance to the venue will be staggered depending on the group. It will not be possible to enter the factory outside the allotted time.

Entrance group 1. Visit in Catalan: 20:30 h
Entrance group 2. Visit in Catalan: 20:45 h
Entrance group 3. Tour in Spanish: 9 p.m.

Tickets on sale on the Museum’s website from Tuesday 20th June at 10am

 

The International Archives Week at the AHBDN

In the week of June 5th to 11th, a new edition of the International Archives Week is celebrated. This year from the Museum and the Historical Archive of the City of Badalona (AHBDN) we want to commemorate this celebration with the publication on our website of the catalogs of the extensive collection of Josep M. Cuyàs i Tolosa.

Josep M. Cuyàs i Tolosa (Badalona 1904-1992) was a self-taught historian and archaeologist. Although this did not become his professional dedication – he worked for 50 years in the offices of the chemical company CROS, of which he became a representative – he never stopped working for the recovery of Badalona’s history .

As a young man he was already interested in archeology. At the age of 16 he published his first article on the subject of archeology in El Eco de Badalona and in 1925 he founded the Badalona Excursionista Association with a group of friends, among them another prominent Badalona historian and archaeologist Joaquim Font i Cussó. In 1933 the Group founded its own museum with the pieces from the excavations and with collections of pieces collected from individuals.

After the war, in 1945, Cuyàs began excavations in the Baetulo area, which he directed as Commissioner of Local Excavations in Badalona, appointed by the historian and archaeologist Josep Serra i Ràfols.

In 1955, precisely when the VIII Provincial Assembly of archaeological excavations was being held, Cuyàs and Tolosa had made the discovery of the baths of Baetulo, with an extraordinary state of conservation. That year, the foundation stone of the current Museum of Badalona (officially inaugurated in 1966) was laid, of which he became the first director.

Although its archaeological side was important, it also stood out for the laborious work of collecting data and documents about Badalona. In this field, one of the most outstanding studies he did was the compilation of data in the parish archive of Santa Maria, which ended a few days before the church burned down in 1936. After retiring as director of the Museum of Badalona, at the age of 65, dedicated himself to going through all the archives of Barcelona and also those of other localities.

This enormous task materialized in the entirety of its collection, which includes 179 boxes of archival collections, 273 titles from the local collection and 137 from the general newspaper library and 1,930 volumes from the library. 75 linear meters guarded by the Museum of Badalona since 1992 and which constitute a primary source for researchers of the history and heritage of Badalona.

 

Josep M. Cuyàs amb la seva esposa. Desconegut. Museu de Badalona. Arxiu Josep M. Cuyàs.

The Museum bombing warning disc in an exhibition at the Museum of the Music

The Museum collaborates with the exhibition Escoltar amb les mans. Suports obsolets, missatges efímers from the Museu de la Música de Barcelona, with the temporary transfer of an acetate disc containing the sound recording of the alarms that warned of imminent bombings during the Civil War.

The exhibition, which has been curated by the musician, composer and sound artist Ferran Fages, reflects and delves into the fragility, durability and capabilities of analog media and how this has determined our listening, memories, imaginaries – individual or collectives-, and the way of relating ourselves to sound.

You can visit this original proposal until December 10th in the temporary exhibition room of the Museu de la Música, c/ Lepant, 150. Barcelona.

Hear the notice and the siren bombing alarm. Catalan

Hear the notice and the siren bombing alarm. Castilian

 

Can Miravitges becomes one scene of Joan Miró’s life

On Wednesday, April 26th at 10:05 p.m., TV3 premieres the film MIRÓ, on occasion of the 130th anniversary of the birth of the painter Joan Miró.

Directed by Oriol Ferrer (Cançó per a tu, Descalç sobre la terra vermella), and starring Edu Lloveras (Joan Miró), Aida Folch (Pilar Juncosa), Pau Roca (Pablo Picasso), Lluïsa Mallol (Dolors Ferrà), Òscar Rabadán (Miquel Miró) and Mel Salvatierra (Maria Dolors), the film was partly shot at the Can Miravitges farmhouse in Badalona.

The film is therefore a perfect pretext to rediscover this little gem of our city’s agricultural past, while tracing the life of this immortal Catalan artist.

Remember that if you want to get to know this Badalona farmhouse, you can still purchase tickets for the visit we will make there on Sunday, June 11 at 10:30 a.m.

 

XVIII MAGNA CELEBRATIO. The Roman Festival of Badalona

From April 27th to 30th, a new edition of the Magna Celebratio, Badalona’s Roman festival, returns!

Once again the Museum and its surroundings will be filled with activities that remember and claim the heritage and history of the ancient Roman city of Baetulo. Historical recreations, workshops for children, open doors to archaeological sites, lectures… that will teach us how baetulonenses lived.

This year the proposals will revolve around sustainability and recycling, two rigorously topical concepts that, as we will discover, the Romans already knew and practiced.

We will publish the program with all the information very soon, stay tuned to our regular broadcasting channels and above all, save the dates!

 

Presentation of the sculpture project dedicated to Mayor Xifré

On Saturday April 1st, at 10.30 am, the project for the sculpture dedicated to Mayor Frederic Xifré, which the Museum of Badalona will commission from the sculptor, will be presented in the Museum’s auditorium Pere Coll, known as Perecoll.

Perecoll, born in Mataró in 1948, is a multifaceted artist who has cultivated painting, goldsmithing and sculpture and who has gained international acclaim. He is the author of several public sculptures, especially in Mataró, where one of his works, entitled La cadira de l’alcalde, is dedicated to Josep Abril Argemí, the republican mayor of that city, who was shot by Franco.

This fact also occurred in Badalona, where Frederic Xifré i Masferrer, Mayor at the outbreak of the Civil War, was shot by the Francoists at the end of the Civil War, specifically on February 15th, 1940.

The initiative to dedicate a sculpture to Mayor Xifré stems from a motion presented to the municipal meeting, on January 31st, 2017, by the Mayor Xifré Cultural Association, in defense of his memory.

During the presentation ceremony, Perecoll will explain the location and the characteristics of the project it plans to carry out in order to pay tribute to the figure of Mayor Xifré and preserve his memory.

 

 

The trunk of the magician Li-Chang at the exhibition “Altres Brosses. Joan Brossa i la poesia d’acció, el parateatre”

From March 15th to July 16th, you can visit the exhibition Altres Brosses. Joan Brossa i la poesia d’acció, el parateatre at the Joan Brossa Foundation in Barcelona, curated by Joan Maria Minguet, in which the Museu de Badalona collaborates by ceding a unique piece from its collection. This is a trunk that the famous magician from Badalona Joan Forns i Jordana (Badalona April 9, 1916 – Barcelona January 12, 1998), Li-Chang, used for his acclaimed escapism numbers. He called it baüla and it entered the Museum’s collections as a donation from his children, Joan Maria and Montserrat Forns, in 2007.

 

Museu de Badalona, Inv. 9691

The exhibition is the result of research that takes the form of an exhibition installation to explain Joan Brossa’s intense dedication to what he called paratheatre, a scenic discipline which, as the curator of the exhibition states, the same Brossa cultivated and that, instead of focusing on the literary tradition of the theater, has since time immemorial sought contact with the spectator through fascination, surprise or occurrence in everything that happens on a stage (or in a circus ring, or in a street or a square) that has nothing to do with the plot or the narrative.

For further information:
https://www.fundaciojoanbrossa.cat/arxiu-arts-visuals/altres-brosses-parateatre