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Nou Barris · 47

Can Peguera

Can Peguera is an urban exception that did not survive by accident: a public “cheap houses” estate built from 1929 to 1932 to rehouse families mainly from Montjuïc’s shantytowns, condemned to disappear for decades and consolidated through neighbourhood resistance. Its low scale preserves a history of housing policy, stigma, care and the right to remain.[1][2]

Stop in a street where one front door is only a few steps from the one opposite. The distance can feel intimate, but it also reveals homes of only 40 or 60 square metres, walls needing maintenance and an inevitably shared daily life. Urban form makes neighbourliness a resource here—and sometimes a friction.

Can Peguera is Barcelona’s least populous neighbourhood and one of its most distinctive public housing ensembles. Rows of one- or two-storey houses, narrow streets and small squares break sharply with Turó de la Peira’s blocks and other Nou Barris developments.

The estate began as rehousing connected to the 1929 International Exhibition. The same city seeking a monumental image removed visible shacks from Montjuïc and transferred families to the periphery. Can Peguera preserves this contradiction in physical form.

Where the name comes from

The name comes from the former farmhouse or place known as Can Peguera. Peguera is associated with making pitch, an adhesive and waterproofing material traditionally produced from resin, often pine resin. The territorial name predates the housing.[1][2]

For much of the Franco period and afterwards, the estate’s official name was Ramón Albó. Restoring Can Peguera does more than replace a label: it reconnects the ensemble with local geography and separates residents’ memory from imposed nomenclature.[1][2]

Administratively it is a Nou Barris neighbourhood between Turó de la Peira park and Parc Central de Nou Barris. The official 2006 polygon does not exhaust everyday life shared with the Turó.[1][2]

Before the neighbourhood

Before the neighbourhood came a farmhouse, rural ground, pinewoods, paths and activities on Turó de la Peira’s slopes. Its immediate history also begins on Montjuïc, where thousands lived in shacks while Barcelona prepared the 1929 Exhibition.[1][2]

Rehousing was not a simple upward line. Families gained a masonry home and tenancy but were moved away from work, networks and centrality to an area with incomplete services. Policy solved the central visibility of shantytowns while producing a new periphery.[1][2]

How the streets were made

About 650 houses were built between 1929 and 1932 according to municipal nomenclature and historical records. They were economical row houses, mainly 40 and 60 m², with direct street access, small yards or outdoor spaces and a density unlike later apartment estates.[1][2]

Distinguish the historical build from current stock: 2022 municipal documentation records 616 public rental homes. Demolition, conversion, facilities and reorganisation explain the difference; 650 and 616 are not competing claims.[1][2]

Dates that changed it

  1. 1929–1932: about 650 cheap houses built mainly for families removed from Montjuïc shacks.[1]
  2. Franco period: Ramón Albó becomes the official name amid decades of stigma and underinvestment.[3]
  3. 1976: the Metropolitan General Plan retains planning logic permitting the ensemble’s disappearance.[3]
  4. 1980s–2000s: neighbourhood mobilisation for services, maintenance and preservation.[3]
  5. 2015: a planning modification removes the general demolition threat and consolidates the residential fabric.[4]
  6. 2022: agreement and rehabilitation pilot in eight homes in the Bellcaire–Darnius–Espinauga–Cistellet block.
  7. 2025–2028: joint Neighbourhood Plan with Turó de la Peira; date each action.
  8. 2000s Heritage recognition debates

People and collective life

The first residents brought experience of shantytown life and work in construction, industry, street trade, domestic service and care. Women managed small houses, scarce income, children and mutual aid while markets, schools and transport were limited.[1]

Close doors and generational continuity encouraged street life, but do not romanticise it: restricted privacy, damp, ageing and energy poverty also matter. Neighbourhood organisations turned private difficulty into common demands.[3]

Original worker residents

First allottees

Pla de Futur monitoring commission

Resident monitoring body for the neighbourhood’s future plan; party to the 2022 pilot rehabilitation agreement.[3]

People behind the buildings

The houses connect architects and agencies with the builders and families who altered, repaired and maintained them for almost a century. A new window, ramp or enclosed yard can archive a domestic need.

The 2022 pilot should identify technical teams, housing authority, contractors and participating residents. Success is not energy efficiency alone: it is improvement without displacement or destruction of the type.

Institutions

Barcelona (ens constructor històric del grup)

The municipal housing and rehabilitation institute manages the public stock and carries unusual territorial responsibility: ownership, maintenance, rent, rehabilitation and resident relations coincide. Associations, community spaces, nearby schools, health and Nou Barris services complete support.[1]

conjunt del barri

The Neighbourhood Plan is temporary governance. Distinguish political commitment, budget, executive project, construction and operating service.[3]

Neighbourhood association

Residents’ organisation of the cases-barates neighbourhood: services, preservation and collective life.

Small civic spaces

Community rooms and spaces at the scale of the cottages.

Struggles that left a mark

Demand: The longest struggle was for the right not to disappear. The 1976 designation sustained uncertainty, discouraged investment and turned maintenance into negotiation. The 2015 consolidation resulted from resident persistence, studies and public decision.[3]

Outcome: In 2015 new planning desaffected the houses. Full rehabilitation remained an open agenda; in 2022 a pilot with residents was formalised.[3]

Demand: The present struggle is preservation without museumification: roofs, façades, services and accessibility; adapting small homes to families and ageing; protecting public rent; and preventing singularity from becoming tourist branding or a pretext for displacement.

Outcome: Significant conservation outcome

Services in a small neighbourhood

Demand: Schools and health access at neighbourhood scale.

Outcome: Dependence on neighbours

What can still be seen

barri de Can Peguera (p. ex. carrer de Vila-seca i illes veïnes)

Rows of low houses, direct doors, small squares, yards, domestic variations, street names and the visual relationship with Turó remain. Apparent repetition reveals decades of adaptation at close range.[1][2]

illa delimitada pels carrers de Bellcaire, Darnius, Espinauga i Cistellet

The Bellcaire–Darnius–Espinauga–Cistellet block documents the rehabilitation pilot through what was tested, completed and later extended elsewhere.[3]

Human-scale streets

Anti-tower model

What disappeared

The Can Peguera farmhouse, rural landscape, some original houses and the physical Montjuïc shantytowns from which many residents came disappeared. Ramón Albó has also receded, though it persists in archives and generational memory.[1]

Do not erase stigma without documenting it. “Cheap houses” was an administrative category and a classification of people; residents reworked it, but its urban hierarchy remains history.[3]

Some original house details

Modified by residents over time (enclosures, annexes, materials).

The neighbourhood today

In 2026 Can Peguera had 2,122 residents, a density of 178.3 people per hectare, a €15,994 mean census-section income in 2023, 11.9 hectares, and 10.2% of residents held non-Spanish nationality.[1][2]

A small population does not mean small need. Ageing homes and residents, low income and public ownership make every maintenance decision directly affect safety, bills, health and community continuity.[1][2]

Non-Spanish nationality (2026): 10.2%

What is changing

Rehabilitation pilot (2022)

The 2022 rehabilitation pilot, 2025–2028 Neighbourhood Plan and housing programmes can change status quickly. Each block or group may be at study, pilot, project, construction or completed-intervention stage. Extension announcements differ through their numbers of homes, timetable, budget, rent effects and temporary rehousing conditions. 'Regeneration' without those facts is inadequate.[3]

Neighbourhood Plan 2025–2028 (Turó–Can Peguera)

A single plan for Turó de la Peira and Can Peguera: park renewal, Balcó d’Equipaments phases II–III, building rehabilitation and education/community programmes. Status: municipal announcement and prioritisation of May 2025; not a completion report.[4]

What the guides leave out

Guides omit that Can Peguera is primarily public rental housing and that its preserved form resulted from resistance to planned demolition. They also mistake low scale for automatic comfort.

Its public value is not that it resembles a village. It asks whether a city can rehabilitate historic social housing, retain residents and improve performance without commodifying distinctiveness.

Tiny population, fabric dense with history

Few residents on the register, but one of the city’s most specific housing memories.

Read it on foot

Start: Metro L4 / buses to Via Júlia–Turó de la Peira · End: Neighbourhood edge at Turó de la Peira park

Walking (excluding stop time): 9 min · 710 m · Estimated visit (with stops): 9 min

The geometry follows the pedestrian network between the three marked points, but it has not been verified as step-free. Check access conditions, works and opening hours before setting out. The approach from public transport is not included in the stated distance.

1
Carrer de Vila-seca
Carrer de Vila-seca 17
Ground-floor cottages with front gardens lining the street[1]
The nomenclator places here the last major vestige of cases barates (1929–1932).[1]
41.43445, 2.16661
2
Illa Bellcaire–Darnius–Espinauga–Cistellet
Carrer de Beret 11
leg: 250 m · 3 min
Eight houses of about 60 m² on the block chosen for the 2022 pilot[3]
Here the rehabilitation agreement with residents was formalised: not demolition, but a technical trial.[3]
41.43318, 2.16838
3
Límit amb el parc del Turó de la Peira
Passeig de Fabra i Puig 410
leg: 460 m · 6 min
Transition from the low house fabric to the park mass and Turó blocks
The 2025–2028 Neighbourhood Plan treats both neighbourhoods as one intervention area.[4]
41.43419, 2.16387

Sources for this page

Dates, figures and historical claims are linked to the records used for this page.

  1. [1] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Districte de Nou Barris (n.d.). Història de Can Peguera. Type: municipal_page. Locator: pàgina Història: mas antic; Ramon Albó; 1929; Exposició; barraques Montjuïc; darrer testimoni cases barates. Accessed: 2026-07-16.
  2. [2] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Nomenclàtor (n.d.). Carrer de Vila-seca. Type: municipal_repository. Locator: entrada Carrer de Vila-seca: barri de Can Peguera; 650 casetes planta baixa 1929–1932; últim vestigi barris de cases barates. Accessed: 2026-07-16.
  3. [3] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Districte de Nou Barris (2022-11-02). Acord amb el veïnat per començar la rehabilitació de les cases barates de Can Peguera. Type: municipal_news. Locator: notícia 02/11/2022: 616 habitatges públics de lloguer 40–60 m²; 1929; planejament 2015 desafectació; prova pilot illa Bellcaire–Darnius–Espinauga–Cistellet (8 cases). Accessed: 2026-07-16.
  4. [4] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Districte de Nou Barris (2025-05-08). El Pla de Barris 2025-2028 impulsa la revitalització del Turó de la Peira i de Can Peguera. Type: municipal_news. Locator: notícia 08/05/2025: pla únic Turó–Can Peguera; Balcó d’Equipaments fases II–III; rehabilitació; programes educatius. Accessed: 2026-07-16.
  5. [5] Ajuntament de Barcelona — CartoBCN (2006+). Unitats administratives de la ciutat de Barcelona — límits de barris. Type: cartography. Locator: cartobcn-barris. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  6. [6] Ajuntament de Barcelona (2006). Nova divisió territorial de Barcelona en districtes i barris. Type: municipal_reference. Locator: divisio-2006. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  7. [7] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2026-01-01). Padró municipal d'habitants (pad_mdbas) — població per barri. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: pad-sexe-2026. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  8. [8] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2021). Densitat de població per barri. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: densitat-2021. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  9. [9] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2023). Renda disponible de les llars per persona. Seccions censals. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: renda-2023. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  10. [10] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2026-01-01). Població per nacionalitat i sexe. Barris. Type: statistical_dataset. Locator: pad-nac-2026. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  11. [11] PAH (n.d.). Plataforma d'Afectats per la Hipoteca. Type: civil_society. Locator: pah. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  12. [12] FAVB (n.d.). Federació d'Associacions de Veïns i Veïnes de Barcelona. Type: civil_society. Locator: favb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  13. [13] Historiografia de l'habitatge / Ajuntament de Barcelona (1929). Cases barates de Barcelona (política d'habitatge social interwar). Type: housing_history. Locator: cases-barates. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  14. [14] Joan Busquets (2005). Barcelona: the urban evolution of a compact city. Type: book. Locator: busquets-barcelona. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  15. [15] MUHBA / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). MUHBA — Museu d'Història de Barcelona (publicacions i jaciments). Type: museum. Locator: muhba. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  16. [16] AHCB / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona — fons i cartografia. Type: archive. Locator: ahcb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  17. [17] Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Catàleg de patrimoni arquitectònic de Barcelona. Type: heritage_catalogue. Locator: heritage-catalog. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  18. [18] AMCB / Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Arxiu Municipal Contemporani de Barcelona. Type: archive. Locator: amcb. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
  19. [19] Ajuntament de Barcelona (n.d.). Nomenclàtor dels carrers de Barcelona. Type: gazetteer. Locator: nomenclator-bcn. Accessed: 2026-07-17.

Last reviewed: 17 July 2026 · 19 sources consulted

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