El Pont de Palautordera
Palautordera
20.11.2017
On Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 November we carried out an artistic intervention with the residents of the Pont Trencat neighbourhood, painting several spaces: the footbridge crossing the C-35 road and the walls of the local school. Rebobinart coordinated the participatory process with the neighbourhood to make the project possible.
The history of Pont Trencat: past and present
The Pont Trencat neighbourhood, in Santa Maria de Palautordera, takes its name from the Gothic bridge built between the 14th and 15th centuries, which followed the route of the old Roman Via Augusta and the medieval royal road. During the Peninsular War, in the early 19th century, the bridge was destroyed to block the advance of the invading Napoleonic troops. Its restoration was completed in 2003, an architectural project that has since received numerous international awards.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, Pont Trencat was a destination for migrants from southern Spain who came to work in the textile industry. The newcomers built houses, drainage and public facilities in this part of Santa Maria de Palautordera, which was beginning to take on its present shape. Because they built their own neighbourhood with their own hands, its residents have a strong sense of cohesion and a deep attachment to the area, while keeping the ties to their cultural origins. The neighbourhood has a very active residents’ association that liaises with the town council, looks after the upkeep of the area and its facilities, and organises events such as the Pont Trencat festival.
A project that empowers the neighbourhood
For years, residents of Pont Trencat had campaigned for a footbridge that would let them cross the C-35 safely and easily. The overpass was completed in 2016, answering that need. Given the neighbourhood’s strong cohesion, the Santa Maria de Palautordera town council decided to launch a participatory project: an artistic intervention on the new overpass and on the primary school. The initiative empowers the community precisely because it was the community that decided how the more than 500 square metres of surface would be treated and what would be depicted on them. Rebobinart coordinated the various interventions, the selection of artists and the participatory process that shaped the final result.
In the video, the participatory project to paint the C-35 footbridge in Santa Maria de Palautordera. Before the footbridge, crossing the road meant construction workers and residents risking their lives. The design was made by local people, and one of the walls carries the surnames of those who in the 1950s and 60s built their own houses and streets with their own hands.
The video in text (abridged) (translated from Catalan)8 min 45 s
The reportSanta Maria de Palautordera sits in an unbeatable setting, between two natural parks: the Montseny and the Corredor.
The town councilThis is a neighbourhood made up of three settlements. Here we have the pont Romà area; behind me would be the pont Trencat, and a little further off, the third. There was a need to connect them, and this road, the C-35, made it impossible to do so normally.
The construction teamThis bridge was essential for the neighbourhood it serves. One of the problems during construction was that, to get from one side of the road to the other, the workers were risking their lives. If you were on the other side and needed a spanner, coming over to the hut to fetch it was a serious safety problem: either you took a car and drove all the way round, or you waited here five minutes for a gap in the traffic. And the same happened to local residents every day on their way to the bus.
Local residentsThe C-35 footbridge has been very important for our neighbourhoods: we had been asking for it for many years and it was very hard to get. And it has brought us much closer together, because although the pont Trencat and the settlement beside it were already fairly connected, the pont Romà was always left out on a limb.
RebobinartThe participatory project to paint the flyover came about as the works were being carried out, because there is a whole series of panels and walls left wide open, right beside a busy road: very visible. It was clear that this would be a major draw for anyone wanting to paint graffiti, and that is why the most appropriate option was for the design to be made by the people who had lived through it so intensely.
My job is to coordinate the participatory process of gathering ideas with residents and to put together a team that works and can work with them. And, in the end, to mediate between the council, the residents, the artists and the structure we are going to paint. We were after that sense of: now we are all going to paint, as a town, and actually build the bridge.
The town councilWe have valued this project greatly, because it is the joint work of a whole neighbourhood.
RebobinartResidents wanted to convey certain messages, and words that identify the neighbourhood were chosen: what this neighbourhood is and what it means to the people who live here. One example is a wall carrying all the surnames of the people who, from the very beginning —the fifties, the sixties— came here themselves to build their own houses and lay out the streets: a whole neighbourhood they built, quite literally, with their own hands.
This bridge has some rather unusual surfaces: you see it in a photograph and then you stand here and it is a different matter. What we have done is build it as we went, with the people, looking for colours that would be in dialogue with the surroundings.
Abridged version: direct quotes are kept; repetitions, overlapping speech and passages unrelated to the project are left out.
