Nou Barris · 47
Can Peguera
Can Peguera is an urban exception that did not survive by accident: a public Cases Barates (“low-cost 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.
Can Peguera (neighbourhood 47) highlighted. Other neighbourhoods in Nou Barris: Vilapicina i la Torre Llobeta, Porta, el Turó de la Peira, la Guineueta, Verdun, la Prosperitat.
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]
Historical construction and current stock are different measures: 2022 municipal documentation records 616 public rental homes. Demolition, conversion, facilities and reorganisation explain the difference from the roughly 650 original houses.[1][2]
Dates that changed it
- 1929–1932: about 650 low-cost houses built mainly for families removed from Montjuïc shacks.[1]
- Franco period: Ramón Albó becomes the official name amid decades of stigma and underinvestment.[3]
- 1976: the Metropolitan General Plan retains planning logic permitting the ensemble’s disappearance.[3]
- 1980s–2000s: neighbourhood mobilisation for services, maintenance and preservation.[3]
- 2015: a planning modification removes the general demolition threat and consolidates the residential fabric.[4]
- 2022: agreement and rehabilitation pilot in eight homes in the Bellcaire–Darnius–Espinauga–Cistellet block.
- 2025–2028: the Neighbourhood Plan groups Can Peguera and Turó de la Peira in one programme area.
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]
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
Rehabilitation without displacement
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.
2022 rehabilitation pilot
The 2022 pilot linked energy improvements to keeping residents in place and preserving the housing type.
Institutions
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]
The Neighbourhood Plan is temporary governance
The 2025–2028 Neighbourhood Plan sets the programme framework shared with Turó de la Peira; each intervention retains its own date and delivery stage.[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]
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.
Services in a small neighbourhood
Demand: Schools and health access at neighbourhood scale.
What can still be seen
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]
The Bellcaire–Darnius–Espinauga–Cistellet block documents the rehabilitation pilot through what was tested, completed and later extended elsewhere.[3]
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. “low-cost housing” 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): 39 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.
Route geometry reviewed: 2026-07-17
Can Peguera (neighbourhood 47) highlighted. Other neighbourhoods in Nou Barris: Vilapicina i la Torre Llobeta, Porta, el Turó de la Peira, la Guineueta, Verdun, la Prosperitat.
Coordinates
Coordinates
Coordinates
Sources for this page
Dates, figures and historical claims are linked to the records used for this page.
- [1] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Districte de Nou Barris (n.d.). Història de Can Peguera. Accessed: 2026-07-16.
- [2] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Nomenclàtor (n.d.). Carrer de Vila-seca. Accessed: 2026-07-16.
- [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. Accessed: 2026-07-16.
- [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. Accessed: 2026-07-16.
- [5] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2026-01-01). Padró municipal d'habitants (pad_mdbas) — població per barri. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
- [6] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2021). Densitat de població per barri. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
- [7] Ajuntament de Barcelona — Open Data BCN (2023). Renda disponible de les llars per persona. Seccions censals. Accessed: 2026-07-17.
Last reviewed: 16 July 2026 · 7 sources consulted