The Rec Comtal: infrastructures and imagination in water RESEARCH 235 The Rec Comtal: infrastructures and imagination in Barcelona water

Roger Sansi Paraules clau: Rec Comtal, Barcelona, UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA AND THE CATALAN INSTITUTE OF ANTHROPOLOGY Aigua, Infraestructures, Imaginari Associate Professor in the Social Anthropology Department of the University of Barcelona. He has done research on Afro-Brazilian religion and culture, the Palabras clave: Rec Comtal, Barcelona, concept of fetish, and art and politics in Barcelona. His publications include Agua, Infraestructuras, Imaginario Fetishes and Monuments (Berghahn, 2008), Sorcery in the Black Atlantic Keywords: Rec Comtal, Barcelona, (University of Chicago press 2011), Money and Personalism in the Lusophone water, infrastructures, Imagination. World (New England UP 2012) and Art, Anthropology and the Gift (Bloomsbury, 2015).

he old Rec Comtal now the memory and the relationship water. In short, the recovery of the Rec is a canal that pro- of the population with the Rec has not Comtal not only raises questions of cul- vided the city of been focussed on. Through the Catalan tural heritage, but also, through cultural Barcelona with Institute of Anthropology, and with the heritage, a complex debate on the right water. The origin of help of the Observatory of Ethnologi- to resources and infrastructures (Corsin, the Rec is difficult cal and Intangible Heritage, the “Rec 2014), the right to the city. to identify, since building works of dif- Comtal” project aims to understand Tferent periods overlap. During the last how the uses of history and heritage The “Rec Comtal” project proposes two centuries, due to the accelerated currently affect the neighbourhoods and making a documentary. The docu- development of Barcelona, the Rec has groups that now live along the route of mentary project has been a key tool disappeared under the network of the what was once the Rec Comtal. We have for research, in two ways. First, because city’s water pipes and sewers. However, also sought to understand how, through one of our main objectives is to give one can say that it is one of the human the recovery of cultural, material or visibility to the Rec infrastructure: infrastructures that has left the most intangible heritage, this case raises ques- Understanding what it is inside and significant imprint on the collective tions regarding “heritage”, property, and out, and how it is presented to the memory and heritage of the people of common property in much broader people of Barcelona. In this sense, we Barcelona. terms: in the case of the Rec Comtal, the have proposed a visual anthropology recovery of historical heritage is strictly of infrastructures in which the canal In recent years, recovery of the Rec has linked to the history of the right of access appears not only as a background or started as an element of archaeological and ownership, whether public, private context of social action, but as a form of and historical heritage. However, up to or common, of basic resources such as this action. The documentary offers us

En aquest article presentem la nos- En este artículo presentamos nuestra In this article we present our research tra recerca sobre el Rec Comtal, una investigación sobre el Rec Comtal, una on the Rec Comtal, a medieval hydraulic infraestructura hidràulica medieval que infraestructura hidráulica medieval que infrastructure that provided water to the proveïa d’aigua la ciutat de Barcelona. El proveía de agua a la ciudad de Barcelona. city of Barcelona. The Rec was aban- Rec va ser abandonat a finals del segle El Rec fue abandonado a finales del siglo doned at the end of the 20th century xx i actualment està sent recuperat com xx y actualmente está siendo recupera- and is currently being recovered as a a patrimoni històric. En aquest article ens do como patrimonio histórico. En este historical heritage site. In the article we interessa entendre com els veïns de Bar- artículo nos interesa entender cómo los are interested in understanding how the celona es relacionen amb el Rec, com els vecinos de Barcelona se relacionan con residents of Barcelona relate to the Rec, poden afectar els plans de recuperació, el Rec, como les pueden afectar los pla- how the recovery plans might affect them, com el Rec planteja qüestions respecte nes de recuperación, como el Rec plantea as the Rec raises questions about infra- a les infraestructures com a patrimoni cuestiones respecto a las infraestructu- structure as private, public or common privat, públic o comú. Finalment, l’article ras como patrimonio privado, público o heritage. Finally, the article considers in es planteja, en termes més generals, la común. Finalmente, el artículo se plantea more general terms the importance of importància de les imatges per a una en términos más generales la importancia Imagination and images for an anthropol- antropologia de les infraestructures. del imaginario y las imágenes para una ogy of infrastructures. antropología de las infraestructuras. 236 RESEARCH Catalonian Journal of Ethnology December 2018 No. 43 an excellent methodological approach, the Rec flowed into the sea. The water Ironically, perhaps the great victim since it allows us to concentrate on the also began to be used to drink, although of these conflicts was Barcelona City images of an infrastructure that is usu- most of the city’s water was supplied by Council’s public service, the great end ally defined by its invisibility (since it wells (March, 2016). user of the Rec. Historically, the city’s is buried, abandoned, hidden, in the drinking water had been supplied background). Putting it on display As of the eighteenth century the water through many springs and wells, but helps us to recover its significance, from the Rec was also used for the first the city’s growth forced the municipal- presence, active social role. cotton factories. The water started to ity to create new infrastructures that become scarce due to its excessive use would guarantee supply, beyond the History of the Rec Comtal and to be too contaminated to be used Rec. While the need for a drinking water The Rec is a medieval canal of uncertain as drinking water in its final section, in supply grew, so did the needs of agri- origin. It is “comtal” (from the count Barcelona. By the end of the century, culture and industry, which consumed of Barcelona), but it is unknown how the Crown, heir to the House of Bar- and contaminated the Rec water before or when it was built, although it is celona, renewed the infrastructure and it reached the town. At the end of the assumed that it was after the end of built the Casa de la Mina de Montcada nineteenth century another Casa de the tenth century (March, 2016). It was (Montcada mine), which took ground- les Aigües (pumping station) was built partly built following the layout of the water from the Besòs River as an addi- in Montcada to complement the Rec. Roman aqueduct, but with different tional supply for the Rec. However, its legality was questioned objectives: the purpose of Rec was not from the beginning since, according to to provide Barcelona with water, but With the disentailment, the Rec was the Water Act of 1879, it was prohibited to move the wheels of flour mills. For no longer royal heritage and was man- to use mechanical wells to the detriment this reason, the Rec followed a more aged by a Junta de Regants (Irrigation of third parties in areas of public domain winding and less direct route than the Board), consisting of three parts: the (Conillera, 1991, p. 56). Those nega- aqueduct, to take advantage of the State, Barcelona City Council and the tively affected could initially be the other unevenness of the terrain (Miró, et al., irrigation community itself (owners of Rec irrigators, but as of the end of the 2015). Another important difference orchards, mills and factories that used nineteenth century, private water com- is that the aqueduct was covered, while the water from the Rec). However, panies were too. Despite these obstacles the Rec was exposed. If the aqueduct Barcelona City Council presided over and conflicts, at different times the City responds to the Roman vision of infra- the board. Council continued to build infrastruc- structures as res publica, a citizen’s right, tures, such as and Trinitat in this case guaranteeing the city’s water As Martin explains (1999), the history Nova pumping stations, and planning supply (Orengo and Miró, 2013), the of the Irrigation Board is full of conflicts the public water supply to the city. But Rec was one of the count’s undertak- over the use of water from the Rec. This while the City Council began to build ings to collect income from flour mills was to be expected in an infrastructure infrastructure, private companies offer- that needed water to operate. It was of this kind: The way a person used the ing this service grew. not, therefore, a “public” work in the water inevitably affects the next person, modern sense, but responded to a feu- either because it reduces the flow of At the end of the nineteenth century dal taxation plan (Orti Gost, 1993). It water or because it contaminates it. The and the early decades of the twentieth, is important to note that the Rec, like flow of water was a fundamental factor the conflict regarding water was mainly the old aqueduct, also acted as a means in this conflict. Water is annoying, as between Barcelona City Council and of communication. Via Augusta was one of our interviewees said, because it the private companies; in particular, built together with the aqueduct, which escapes; It needs to be contained, sepa- Societat General d’Aigües de Barcelona, was still the main outlet of Barcelona rated, quantified and administered in SGAB (later, Agbar) (Martin, 2009). At in medieval times. order not to lose it. These are the fun- the beginning of the twentieth century, damental functions of any water infra- an important part of the Rec was already With the passing of the centuries and structure, and yet the infrastructure will integrated into Barcelona’s water sys- the growth of the population in Barce- never contain this fluidity, especially in tem. The typhus epidemic of 1917 was lona, between the fourteenth and sev- the imagination of the users. This dif- attributed to the water from the Rec, enteenth centuries, water from the Rec ficulty to control it can been seen more so a water sanitation programme was began to be used to water the orchards clearly in a Mediterranean context in demanded. This was an episode of the and for the dye and leather workshops which the discharge is irregular, some- struggle between the public and private in the Rivera neighbourhood, where times weak and sometimes excessive. sectors, a struggle that Agbar won for The Rec Comtal: infrastructures and imagination in Barcelona water RESEARCH 237 various reasons, both due to the lack of end of the Rec, in Montcada, historical neighbourhood is most evident. The resources of the City Council, technical buildings such as the Casa de la Mina second section, from Trinitat Nova to problems and the lack of long-term have been recovered since the 1990s, Glòries, where the Rec was covered over political will (Martin, 2017). and, more recently, the stretches of the and disappeared in the second half of Rec in the open air have been dignified. the twentieth century. The claim over At the end of the nineteenth century, the Rec has been led by cultural asso- the Rec came town planning into con- At the moment in Barcelona a Rec ciations and local historians who have flict with the expansion of the city and Comtal master plan is being processed, tried to recover its recent memory. In its infrastructures: The opening of the through which it is also planned to this section the Rec appears as an icon and the creation of railways recover and give value to different sec- of the identity of the neighbourhoods, and roads made it necessary to bury or tions of the Rec. On the date of writing as opposed to the imposition of Barce- divert the Rec in several phases (Guardia, of this article (June 2018), the Master lona as a metropolis. Finally, in the third 2012). As Barcelona absorbed the towns Plan has not yet been made public. These section, from Glòries to and to the north, the Rec also disappeared. recovery plans, in accordance with the Barceloneta, where the memory of the During the first half of the twentieth notion that the Rec is a historical asset to Rec is already distant, the Rec appears as century, several sections of the Rec were be valued, have found the financial sup- a fundamental element of historical and covered up to Plaça de les Glòries. Dur- port of Agbar, which, paradoxically (or archaeological heritage in the hands of perhaps not), is interested in recovering ing the Franco regime, other stretches the The City Council archaeology and were covered as far as , the memory of an infrastructure that was heritage services, but it is also used by finally reaching the Trinitat Vella sec- once its rival, one hundred years ago. But residents as a symbol of the resistance tion, which was covered at the end of this recovery is considered, for now, in of the neighbourhood against real estate the seventies. In the second half of the terms of cultural heritage. The possibil- speculation. In the following sections, twentieth century the flow of the Rec ity of restoring the Rec as a public water we will explain what we have found was only residual in the new Barcelona supply infrastructure in Barcelona is not in each of these places in more detail. water system. From 1965, the supply of considered. This point places the Rec at drinking water from the Rec was with- the centre of a debate that is currently From Montcada to Trinitat Vella: drawn. In 1985 the irrigation society, taking place openly, between public and the open Rec and the big city which had already become irrelevant, private, in the city’s water service. The infrastructures. was dissolved and in 1992 finally, the case of the Rec, we believe, can add an The Rec appears on the surface at the Rec was diverted from Trinitat Vella, element of complexity to this debate, in Casa de la Mina Vella pump house in returning to the Besòs River, on the occa- which the definition of what is public, Montcada i Reixac, a building that was sion of the construction of the Nus de la private or common, historically, is not constructed at the end of the eighteenth Trinitat (a highway interchange). as obvious as it may seem. century by the crown of , when In recent years in Barcelona we have The Rec Comtal, the water level of the Rec was increased witnessed a certain recovery of the Rec, neighbourhood to by taking groundwater from the Besòs at least in public discourse and imagina- neighbourhood River. This building has been restored tion: The Rec is spoken of in politics In our research we have followed the and is currently a nursing home in the and the media, in neighbours’ associa- route of the Rec, from the source to neighbourhood of Can Sant Joan. tions, and local researchers, historians what was once the point where it flowed The Rec comes out under the house, and archaeologists have begun publish- into the sea: from Montcada to the Ciu- through the “Reixegó”, the grid that ing works on the Rec (March, 2016; tat Vella district of Barcelona. On this controlled the flow of water, and which Miró, 2015). According to Manel Mar- route we have found the residents to only the Irrigation Board had access to. tin (personal communication), the idea have very different relationships with A few hundred metres further away is to recover of the Rec in the city stems the Rec. We have identified three sec- the Casa de les Aigües (or Montcada from the discovery of the eighteenth tions: The first section, from Montcada Wells), which was built at the end of century remains which were found to Trinitat Nova, where the Rec still the nineteenth century, faced with the under the Mercat del Born and declared exists, is in the open air and is still part evidence that the supply from the Mina a Cultural Asset of National Interest in of everyday life. It is in this section also Vella was not enough for the city. This 2006. The Rec appears in these remains that the infrastructure of the big city time, the Casa de les Aigües was a pro- as one of the main defining features of (transport, water, factories, electricity) ject by the municipality of Barcelona. A the urban fabric of the city. At the other and its conflicting relationship with the pump house was built on the premises 238 RESEARCH Catalonian Journal of Ethnology December 2018 No. 43

spaces are currently being restored and turned into museums and guided tours and visits are organised there. In these visits and in the information panels, the importance of Montcada in the Barce- lona water supply is emphasised, and in the fact that these are public infra- structures.

Beyond the Casa de les Aigües we find the Can Sant Joan district. This neigh- bourhood is physically separated from the centre of Montcada by a series of roads and railway tracks, along with the Besòs River, which isolates it from other town centres. Can Sant Joan grew as a mainly self-built working class neigh- bourhood during the Franco regime. Much of the population worked for one of these infrastructures, in particular for Renfe: There is a train stop, Montcada- Bifurcació, which gave the most com- mon name of the neighbourhood, “Bifurcació” or “Bifurca”. Although they live or have lived thanks to these infrastructures, the residents of Can Sant Joan are aware that they are located on what they call “the periphery of the periphery”, a neighbourhood that is virtually isolated although, ironically, it is surrounded by roads and high voltage power lines. Accidents when crossing the train tracks are all too frequent.

The great majority of the inhabitants of this district knew the Rec as “the river”. They were not farmers, they were Mina Vella in Montcada. December 2016. LIMEN ARCHIVE not members of the Irrigation Board and, therefore, they did not have any where the Rec Irrigation Board held house. In this period the Trinitat Vella productive relationship with it. In the its meetings. and Trinitat Nova pump houses were memories of the people of Can Sant also built, which we will discuss later. Joan, the Rec is often associated with The Casa de les Aigües de Montcada recreational use: the children swam in was renovated in 1917 by introduc- The Casa de les Aigües stopped oper- the Rec and they still swim in it now. ing new water purification techniques ating as such in 1989, and then suf- It was used to wash clothes and, in fact, and new catchments to prevent further fered great deterioration. Although it it still is: We have seen people washing outbreaks of typhus, such as the 1914 belonged to Barcelona City Council, rugs in the “river”. We also witnessed an epidemic, which had been attributed to the City Council of Moncada i Reixac evangelical baptism in the Rec. the waters of Montcada, although the took over and restored it, transform- source of the outbreak was never found. ing it into the axis of the Parc de les The stretch of the “river” that passed The new wells that were to supply Bar- Aigües, which goes from the Casa de la through the town of Can Sant Joan, celona with water were built under the Mina Vella to the Casa de l’Aigua. These was covered in the 1950s and known The Rec Comtal: infrastructures and imagination in Barcelona water RESEARCH 239 as Carrer del Reixagó. The “river” was of the residents of Can Sant Joan, but The initial stretch of the Rec through seen in that period as potentially dan- not the only one nor the most impor- the centre of Vallbona was landscaped gerous (some children had drowned) tant one. For decades, neighbours have in the nineties by Barcelona City Coun- in the context of exponential growth in been fighting to close the cement fac- cil. But coming out of Vallbona, the Rec the neighbourhood. The section that tory that dominates the neighbour- still has a similar appearance today to a left Montcada and led to Barcelona was hood’s skyline. And, in particular, like hundred years ago. left open, in the neighbourhood of Vall- the whole city of Montcada, they ask for bona, but until recently this section was the train tracks to be covered. It seems In the area formerly known as the very neglected and full of rubbish. This that the recent agreement between Quadra de Vallbona, the Rec is still used stretch of the Rec passes between a hill Montcada Town Hall and the Min- for agricultural purposes today. To the that separates Montcada from Barce- istry (2017)1 will finally result in the south of the Rec, on the narrow terraces lona and the Renfe railway track. The train tracks being covered. But in this that separate it from Avinguda Meridi- neighbours demanded that this section case, it is not clear what will happen ana, there are many unofficial allot- be cleaned up, not only for aesthetic to the Rec, which is only a few metres ments. But on the other side we find or cultural reasons, or for the recovery away from the tracks. In any case, it is what may be the last agricultural exploi- of local historical heritage, but also for difficult to say what the neighbours of tation of the municipality of Barcelona: practical reasons: It was a contaminated Can Sant Joan would choose if they had The “La Ponderosa” allotment, as it is and dangerous area, and the road linking the choice between burying the tracks commonly called. This allotment is the Vallbona with Can San Joan is regularly and the disappearance of the Rec. work of José Ortuño, an old immigrant used by residents of the two neighbour- who arrived in Barcelona in the fifties hoods, which are both isolated. At Vallbona we find a similar type of and began to work the land in Vallbona. relationship with the Rec. Vallbona, Progressively, he rented all of the land At Can Sant Joan, the Rec is essentially like Can Sant Joan, is surrounded by and had to hand over many of the plots a recreational space, a place to stroll, infrastructures that isolate it from the as they were invaded by infrastructures, and also a means of communication rest of the city. To reach Torre Baró train like . with another nearby neighbourhood. station, you must cross a bridge over Viewing the Rec as heritage seems sec- Avinguda Meridiana. On the other At La Ponderosa, water circulates ondary to these roles. Cleaning up the hand, only a few buses come to Vall- with one of the oldest techniques of Rec has been one of the local demands bona. the Mediterranean vegetable garden,

Allotment with drawbridge to cross the Rec Comtal. December 2016. LIMEN ARCHIVE 240 RESEARCH Catalonian Journal of Ethnology December 2018 No. 43

Furrow irrigation at La Ponderosa. December 2017. LIMEN ARCHIVE furrow irrigation. This type of irriga- kept as agricultural land (although it is district is, like the previous ones, a tion can be seen as an expensive use not specified who will be the owner).2 working class district, which grew of water. The fact is that La Ponder- exponentially with immigration dur- osa does not pay for the water it uses, After La Ponderosa, the Rec disap- ing the Franco regime. The “river” is nor is it ever without water. Since the pears. If we pass under a bridge on Av. remembered by the locals in a similar Irrigation Board no longer existed, in Meridiana, we arrive at the Casa de les way to the previous neighbourhoods: 1985, there was nobody claiming any Aigües in Trinitat Vella. This building in playful terms, as a recreational space payment to use the water of the Rec, was built in 1917 as a pumping sta- where children swam, clothes were which, despite being a built infrastruc- tion for water, which reached Trinitat washed and people went for a stroll. ture, appears as a natural “river” and Nova. The City Council project was But in this neighbourhood there is without an owner. This also invites to bring the water from Montcada less of a memory, given the physical informal and sometimes surprising use to Collserola and from there make disappearance of the “river” in the of water, such as cartoners or cardboard it reach the whole city. This project late seventies: It can only be revived scavengers that come to fill the trucks was not carried out. Agbar took over through photographs of when the with water to swell the cardboard and the supply of water for Barcelona. In “river” was open. The historic memory sell it at a better price. The farmers of La fact, Agbar built a Casa de les Aigües of the Rec is not as publicly marked Ponderosa complain about this activity, next to the Besòs River, a little fur- as in Montcada. The Trinitat Vella not because they are stealing water, but ther downstream from the Casa de pump house has not been made into because they flood the paths. les Aigües of Trinitat Nova. Since a museum, although the Association 1965, the water of the Rec has not for the Research and Dissemination We do not know what will happen to gone directly into the municipal sup- of the Memory of Trinidad Vella has the La Ponderosa allotment once Mr ply circuit. At the same time, the Rec been demanding the use of the space Ortuño is no longer around. Pending was covered. At the moment, after as a heritage site for years. But the the publication of the Rec Master Plan, arriving at Trinitat Nova, it is diverted house is assigned to a foundation that the City Council has already commis- and returns to the Besòs River. is dedicated to the social and labour sioned some projects to develop the integration of the young people of the area. Apparently, the allotment is on In Trinitat Vella, as in Vallbona, the neighbourhood. In this section, until buildable land, but in the plans that Rec was known as the “river”. This now, the Rec has not been given much have been made public so far, it has been neighbourhood of the Sant Andreu importance as a heritage site. The Rec Comtal: infrastructures and imagination in Barcelona water RESEARCH 241

Children paddling in the Rec. Carrer Madriguera, Trinitat Vella 1952. COMMISSION FOR THE RESEARCH AND DISSEMINATION OF THE MEMORY OF TRINITAT VELLA

In Trinitat Nova we find the outskirts Sant Andreu mill have been found. The the Montcada mines): in others, that of the city, the opening or burial of the City Council commissioned architect the archaeological remains be put on great infrastructures that surround it: Carles Enrich to create an archaeologi- display behind protective glass, and in freeways, railways, water treatment cal park project on this site. Enrich’s others, it was suggested that the route stations and the Besòs River itself. It project suggest revamping this area of the Rec be shown using a different is interesting to see how, on entering which is currently disused, and mak- pavement, with red brickwork. In terms Barcelona, there is less institutional ing a park where the archaeological of town planning, it has been suggested interest to reclaim a public infrastruc- remains are highlighted, but where local that the Rec be used as an axis that con- ture of the City Council, compared to vegetation is also recovered, in what he nects neighbourhoods with pedestrian the importance it is given in Montcada. calls “renaturalisation”, and recreational roads and cycling tracks. The project use and urban vegetable allotments are suggests restoring the Rec as a river- From Trinitat Vella to Glòries: promoted. This project is the pilot plan bank, as a “blue corridor” and “green the memory of the neighbourhoods for a much more ambitious project, the corridor” (Massanes and Evers, 1999), and the recovery of the Rec Rec Master Plan, which was proposed but also as a connection point, a social The old route of the Rec arrives at Sant on March 23, 2016, but which has not and historical corridor, so to speak. It Andreu, passing through the Nus de yet been approved.3 The plan proposes would be, in short, a case of reconnect- la Trinitat. An interesting point in a metropolitan route with new recrea- ing the neighbourhoods and provide this stretch is the plot of land between tion areas, garden areas, green spaces new spaces, not only for recreation, but L’Andana de la Estació and Fernando and spaces for representation of the also for heritage purposes, which are Pessoa streets, in front of the train archaeological remains of the Rec, in a green spaces and also become a mark tracks and on the other side of the old cultural and natural restoration project. of the identity of the neighbourhoods. Maquinista factory. On this site archae- In some sections it was suggested that ological remains of the ancient Roman the Rec be uncovered again (although This project is linked to the project for aqueduct, a bridge, the Rec and the old water does not actually come from Plaça de les Glòries, which is already 242 RESEARCH Catalonian Journal of Ethnology December 2018 No. 43

note that the Study Centre has made a video for the exhibition. In this video, members of the Study Centre talk about the passage of the Rec through Sant Andreu, and residents of Sant Andreu also appear, explaining their childhood memories of the Rec, which was cover over in this neighbourhood in the fifties. These memories are staged with children dressed in vintage clothing in sequences in black and white. The video has a clearly nostalgic air.

From the point of view of the Study Centre, the Rec is mainly seen as a sign of identity in the neighbourhood, as a reaction to the radical transformation it has gone through in the last fifty years which has made it a peripheral area of , end of the nineteenth century. SANTIAGO RUSIÑOL Barcelona. The past of Sant Andreu “village”, with a clearly differentiated underway (2018). The “Canopia The “allotments”, on the other hand, centre, with the “river” and the fields, Urbana” project aims to transform a appear in the background as neat, open, appears for the purposes of nostalgia, space that was essentially a connection without enclosures, like public gardens, but also in order to reclaim it. In fact, it point, Plaça de les Glòries, into an obviously not informal vegetable gar- is expected that the Rec Comtal revival urban forest, including the creation of dens. The image of the recreational use project will help to reopen it as far as the small reserves for migratory birds.4 The put forth in these projects responds, historic centre of the neighbourhood. Rec Comtal is also preeminent in the perhaps inevitably, to an idea of lei- project, with the creation of a waterway sure that perhaps we could define as In , the relationship with the where it used to pass through. “civic”, that complies with municipal Rec is similar, in terms of nostalgia and ordinances. reclaiming of a disappeared identity It is interesting, however, to see the trait, before the absorption of the neigh- images of the projects that identify how The City Council projects coincide, bourhood into the great city during the leisure is understood in these spaces. without overriding, with the view of the twentieth century. The Rec was also In the “renaturalisation” images pro- Rec held in neighbourhoods such as Sant covered in this district after the Civil posed in the Enrich project, by the Andreu or El Clot. In these neighbour- War. Enric H. March, a member of the team of architects commissioned for hoods, it is the cultural associations and Clot-Camp de l’Arpa History Work- the Vallbona project5 and the Canopia local historians who defend the mem- shop, has kept a blog on the Rec7 for Urbana project for Glòries, we cannot ory of the Rec, in particular, the Ignasi years and has recently published a book. see any children (or elderly people) Iglésias Study Centre in Sant Andreu, El Rec Comtal: 1000 anys d’història bathing in the Rec, which makes us which inherited the Board of Irrigator’s (March, 2016), which gives an excellent assume that this would be considered archive for the Rec Comtal.6 The Study summary of the history of the Rec and an inappropriate use of the Rec. In fact, Centre recently opened an exhibition identifies its passage through the city. when a member of the Can Sant Joan called, “Past, Present and Future of the residents’ association recently asked Rec Comtal”, at the Can Fabra Cultural It should be said that both the exhibition a person in charge of the Town Hall Centre. This exhibition aims to be the at the Ignasi Iglésias Study Centre and the Archaeology Service whether someone heart of the Rec Interpretation Centre book by March seem to have been a great could swim in the Canòpia Urbana de project that the Study Centre intends to success with the public, given attend- Glòries River, they were amused and open in an abandoned house on Carrer ance at the exhibition and the activities responded: “I don’t think they’ll let del Pont de Sant Andreu, where the Rec organised and the many presentations them.” In the images, there are many used to be. The exhibition also received that March has given of the book, which people walking, doing sports or cycling. the support of Agbar. It is interesting to has already sold out. El Rec is an issue that The Rec Comtal: infrastructures and imagination in Barcelona water RESEARCH 243 the people of Barcelona are interested and that moment on, the “RECsistència, in protest against the construction of curious, particularly in the neighbour- banc o barri” campaign was launched10 a hotel with 99 beds, awarded to the hoods the Rec went through. (RECsistence, bank or neighbourhood) construction company Nuñez i Nav- to defend the Ateneu, which clearly arro. The neighbours protested against From Glòries to the sea: expresses a position of confrontation the flood of tourists in the Old Town, Rec archaeology and real estate with real estate speculation and the but in particular they argued that the speculation financial institutions that carry it out. hotel was built on the remains of the Just outside El Clot, recent works in At the time of writing this article (March Rec Comtal, thus violating the histori- Plaça de les Glòries (March 2016) have 2018), the Ateneu has not yet vacated. cal heritage of the city.11 This protest uncovered a section of the Rec which, forced the City Council to carry out according to the Archaeology service, The question of real estate speculation an archaeological survey of the site, the is of great importance, since it can help is also key to the next and last section result of which was the discovery of explain the origin of the Rec, which of the Rec, . In this area a necropolis dating back to the Early may be older than was assumed until the pressure of housing sale and rental Middle Ages. However, the City Coun- now (tenth century).8 In any case, from prices has been added to the pressure cil reached an agreement with Nuñez Glòries to the sea, residents’ memory of tourism, which has resulted in many and Navarro to incorporate an archaeo- of and relationship with the Rec is residents having to leave and their logical plan parallel to the construction much vaguer, since the Rec was cov- homes being replaced by tourist accom- of the hotel12 and the works went on. ered between the end of the nineteenth modation. Among the multitude of Neighbourhood associations lodged century and the early twentieth century conflicts, scandals and police reports a complaint against the City Council (March, 2016). There is, therefore, no that this transformation has caused for the case of the hotel, and the Public living memory of the Rec. But it is pre- in the last decades, we find the case of Prosecutor’s Office found irregularities sent in the names of the streets, like the Hotel on Carrer Rec Comtal. On in the procedure, but without there Carrer del Rec Comtal, Carrer de Sant September 18, 2015, the Ciutat Vella being any criminal significance.13 Pere, or Carrer del Rec in La Ribera. Neighbourhood Association and the Neighbours in Defence of Ciutat Vella For residents, the argument of historical In the neighbourhood, the blocked Passeig de Lluís Companys heritage is only part of a more general Ateneu Popular el Rec social centre was recently founded.9 It was born in June 2014 as a result of the occupation of premises abandoned by Bankia at number 72, Carrer Ausiàs March. The occupation is the result of a campaign by youth associations in the neighbour- hood that protested about the lack of associative spaces. The name Ateneu Popular el Rec was chosen to refer to an element that reflects the neigh- bourhood’s identity, although there is almost no direct memory of it. In Fort Pienc, the Rec refers to a Barcelona before the Eixample grid, before the homogenisation and depersonalisation of the neighbourhoods. However, the objective of the Ateneu is not only to research the heritage of the Rec, but also to revive the association, “make a neighbourhood” and present a critical position with regard to the real estate speculation that the area has suffered in recent years. After two years’ operation, they received an eviction notice. From The Rec. 2014. ATENEU POPULAR DEL FORT PIENC 244 RESEARCH Catalonian Journal of Ethnology December 2018 No. 43 problem; the transformation of the the same image, nor do they seem to tect the Rec may conflict with many neighbourhood into a tourist area. In have the same value as heritage. of these uses. As we have seen, in the Ciutat Vella the Rec Comtal is a remote initial sections of the Rec, where it is still presence, “fossilised” in the streets, as Conclusions: urbanism, open, the Rec is a “river”, an open space March says (2016). What is interest- heritage and infrastructure without an owner and “natural”, mean- ing, however, is how the remains of the Our research on the Rec Comtal has ing free; people use it to wash clothes, Rec in this area have been given value. led us to think about a number of water gardens, swim... or even swell According to Manel Martin, as we have issues, which could be summarised as cardboard. Probably none of these uses mentioned, it can be said that the recov- three topics: The first is the uses of the can be accommodated in the regula- ery of the Rec is due to the importance Rec, real and planned, between the tion that the Master Plan will propose. given to the eighteenth century remains residents and the city, and how these Determining the correct uses of the Rec of the city found under the Born mar- uses affect the “development” of the depends on the rights of access to water. ket, which in 2006 were declared a Cul- Rec. The second is the question of the The regulatory plans of Barcelona City tural Asset of National Interest. The Rec as heritage. Cultural, material and Council will include a legal report that case of the Mercat del Born is interest- intangible heritage, but also heritage in says who has the right to the Rec and ing, because in the previous decade, the most general sense, a property. The how it can be used. It is not, therefore, in 1991, the City Council built a car third is the question of infrastructure as a question only of cultural, material or park opposite the market, where there an image and the collective imagination intangible heritage, but rather of “herit- were similar archaeological remains or, regarding infrastructures. age” in itself, of ownership of the water perhaps, even more important ones, and of the infrastructure that contains including a Roman necropolis and a Uses of the Rec and city projects it. After all, the question is what kind Muslim one.14 But few remains still In the various relationships that the of heritage we are talking about, who exist today. The “discovery” of the city agents we have presented have with it belongs to and who has the right to of 1714 under the Born, and its museo- the Rec, a series of visions of the city use it. logical recovery, are the result not only have been laid on the table from the of an archaeological research process point of view of urban planning, neigh- From the perspective of the architec- but also of a political project. A project bourhood cohesion, public spirited- tural and landscape projects that we that also made an entity visible that ness, leisure, centre-suburbs relations, have mentioned, the Rec appears as had become invisible, the Rec, and that connections and uses or the “culture” of an object of contemplation, an image, from the beginning of the twenty-first water. One of the results of the Master a part of a landscape or park that can century is reborn under the protection Plan will be to determine the correct be admired from a distance: walking, of historical heritage. But as we have and incorrect uses of the Rec. Precisely, cycling, exercising. Even in the case seen, not all sections of the Rec produce this regulation which attempts to pro- that the allotments are present, it is not clear how they will be administered and drained of water; It is unlikely that unlimited irrigation will be allowed due to the expense it would entail. In these projects, the Rec does not appear as a functional infrastructure or as a natural river, but as an embellishing feature of a “naturalised” space but not actually natural, that is, free: The projects design parks that look like what these places may look like “naturally”, but within a highly symbolic urban order, which tries to signify a natural and cultural past without returning to it. Paradoxically, then, this “recovery” may conflict with the experience of the Rec which local residents currently have. This does not mean that recovery of the Rec is not The Rec Comtal in the Born-Centre for Culture and Memory. 2016. LIMEN ARCHIVE a project that many residents might The Rec Comtal: infrastructures and imagination in Barcelona water RESEARCH 245 enthusiastically support, but it must be the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona The Rec Comtal and a visual noted that this recovery will also involve in 2012.15 The contract was cancelled anthropology of infrastructures some compromises. In particular, we because it had been awarded without This article also proposes a contribution can say that the project conforms to a public tender. In recent years, critical to the anthropology of infrastructures. the perspective of neighbourhoods voices have risen against the monopoly We could define an infrastructure as a such as Sant Andreu and El Clot, who enjoyed by Agbar, and private water built structure that facilitates the cir- want to recover the Rec as an element of supply companies in in gen- culation and the exchange of things, identity, rather than in the areas of the eral, with campaigns such as l’Agua és people or ideas. Infrastructures operate initial and final stretches of the Rec. The Vida (www.aiguaesvida.org), which as systems that model the nature of the urban development plans to recover the have promoted the idea of consulting elements that constitute it. They have a Rec are an example of the “Barcelona the public on the public management peculiar ontology: they are things and model”, characterised by large urban of water in Barcelona in May 2018. The also relationships between things (Lar- projects (Capel, 2005) that suggest a question of this consultation was: “Do kin, 2012). collective identity (Delgado, 2007). But you want Barcelona water management precisely because they try to reflect a to be public and with citizen participa- The terminfrastructure insists on the collective identity, these projects leave tion?”. The inclusion of this question figure of the "base" or "background" on little room for peripheral or dissenting has been challenged by Agbar for two which objects and subjects are formed identities from the models they propose. reasons: first, because the City Council and circulated. Infrastructures are also does not have the authority to decide vehicles of imagination, in particular the Water heritage unilaterally on the public manage- collective imagination of progress and It is interesting to point out, on the other ment of water; and secondly, because modernity. Within this imagination, hand, that these projects have the back- the question is not “clear enough”; the infrastructure that works should ing and financial support of Agbar. In Water management is already public, be invisible and inaudible: It remains recent years, the Agbar Foundation and but it is granted to a mixed company, in the background as the network that the Archaeology Service of Barcelona owned 70% by Agbar, 15% by AMB permits circulation. The infrastructure have signed several collaboration agree- and 15% by Criteria, CaixaBank.16 It that appears as an object, and is itself the ments to promote projects to recover seems, then, quite obvious why Agbar protagonist, indicates on the contrary the remains of the Rec. The agreement feels the need for a good public image. an accident, something that should signed on May 4, 2016 provides for the not happen. But, ironically, it is these production of a web documentary, an In this sense, the recovery of the Rec accidents that make us understand the interactive documentary that will offer can be related to the claim over a public operation of infrastructures, because a virtual tour of the Rec. Agbar’s interest water service. But we must go a little they open the door in the background: in the Rec can be a reason for reflec- further and understand which of the They make an image appear. tion, since, as we have said, the Rec and ideas that the “remunicipalisation”17 the public infrastructures that derive of water or even of water as a common We are not interested here in under- from it have disappeared as a direct or asset, recently promoted by the City standing the “infrastructure” as a “real” indirect consequence of the success of of Barcelona,18 are difficult to apply to background that hides the fiction of Agbar as a supplier of water in the city the case of the Rec. Indeed, the Rec was figures, ideology. On the contrary, of Barcelona. The only possible read- never entirely owned by the municipal- what we find interesting is the dynamic ing of this interest is in terms of public ity, initially it was feudal property and relationship between figure and back- image: the company’s desire, we could was not built with the intention of pro- ground: how figures (objects and sub- even say need, to show a positive image, viding a public service; and then it was jects on the surface) can, in fact, change of involvement in the appreciation of a consortium between the Crown, the infrastructures. This dynamic duality the historical and cultural heritage of City Hall and the irrigators. This infra- between figure and background, thing/ water infrastructures and, even, iden- structure was never a “common asset” network, object/context, is fundamen- tification with the public institutions. either19 but it was always an object of tal in what we suggest calling a visual This desire and need is made clearer in conflict of interests between different anthropology of infrastructures. The Rec a context in which this company has entities and powers. In the case of the is an extraordinary example of this argu- been widely questioned, in particular Rec, the argument of the “comuns” or ment. When it disappears as an infra- since March 16, 2016, when the High the “right to infrastructures” (Corsin, structure at the end of the twentieth Court of Justice of Catalonia cancelled 2014) can not be justified, in reference century, it appears as an image that dif- the contract signed between Agbar and to the origins. ferent agents (architects, archaeologists, 246 RESEARCH Catalonian Journal of Ethnology December 2018 No. 43 historians, municipal officials) intend ever, the different appearances of the about the construction of the hotel over to recover. But it is always an image: Rec, as it emerges on the surface, resist the Rec, the background comes to the they do not really propose “reviving” the construction of a single “directed” surface in unexpected and uncontrol- the Rec, re-using it as an infrastruc- coherent image: from the residents of lable ways, like the water it contained. n ture, but simply “recreating it”, giving Can Sant Joan who swim in the river to it value through the imagination. How- the residents of Ciutat Vella who protest

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NOTES

1 8 14 https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/05/18/ http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/barce- https://www.elperiodico.cat/ca/barcelona/ catalunya/1495135353_843242.html lona/20160308/40280493192/hallada-piedra- 20161019/ningu-va-defensar-el-born- rosetta-rec-comtal-Glòries.html el-1991-5574524 2 http://www.planur-e.es/miscelanea/view/ 9 15 recuperaci-n-del-rec-comtal-barcelona-/full https://ateneupopularelrec.wordpress.com/ https://www.ara.cat/economia/TSJC-concessio- lempresa-recorrera-prestant_0_1541246056. 3 10 html https://www.elperiodico.com/es/barcelona/ https://ateneupopularelrec.wordpress.com/ 20160403/ayuntamiento-propone-22 el-rec/recsistencia/ 16 -intervenciones-urbanas-recorrido-rec- http://www.elcritic.cat/investigacio/la-nova- comtal-5014363 11 guerra-de-aigua-agbar-contra-la-multiconsulta- https://www.elperiodico.com/es/barcelona/ de-barcelona-20898 4 20141003/nueva-protesta-en-ciutat-vella- https://www.elperiodico.cat/ca/barcelona/ contra-el-hotel-proyectado-en-el-rec-comtal- 17 20140207/el-projecte-canopia-urbana-guanya- 3573277 http://www.aiguaesvida.org/category/ el-projecte-de-reforma-de-les-Glòries-3080130 remunicipalitzacio/ 12 5 https://www.elperiodico.com/es/barcelona/ 18 http://www.planur-e.es/miscelanea/view/ 20141218/una-necropolis-bajo-el-hotel-del- http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/ recuperaci-n-del-rec-comtal-barcelona-/full rec-3784360 ecologiaurbana/ca/dia-mundial-aigua/jornada

6 13 19 http://centreestudisignasiiglesias.blogspot. https://www.elperiodico.com/es/barcelona/ https://reccomtal.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/ com.es/ 20170614/el-fiscal-halla-irregularidades-en- programa-de-la-jornada-rec-comtal-un-be-comu/ el-hotel-de-rec-comtal-de-barcelona-nunez-y- 7 navarro-no-delito-6105014 http://el-rec-comtal.blogspot.com.es/