La Sagrera

Building in the neighbourhood of the Sagrera, work dated 1965 by the architect Oriol Bohigas

La Sagrera is a neighbourhood of Barcelona. It is bordered to the north with Sant Andreu del Palomar and to the east by the neighborhood of La Verneda; included by the south end is the zone named Navas, and to the west the Congress area.

The neighborhood of La Sagrera is integrated with the 9th district of the city of Barcelona, having officially been given the name of Sant Andreu (Saint Andrew), although never was part of the ancient municipality of Sant Andreu del Palomar, but to Sant Martí de Provençals; as a matter of fact, La Sagrera keeps closer links with Sant Andreu del Palomar than with the rest of neighborhoods nearby.

History

The origin of this name comes from the 11th century, when the farmers of Catalonia lived under the threats and the assaults of the noble. The Abbot Oliba, seeing the need to protect to the farmers, imposed the creation of a space of 30 happen around the churches in which people and goods would be secured of any assault. In these spaces, the farmers built some small buildings called in the Catalan language "sagrers", that used to save the harvests of the rector and the people of the hovering.

The first notices documented date of the 998 and do reference to a group of houses, some with towers of defence, around the "sagrera" of the parish church of Sant Martí of Provençals.

This scarce population would maintain for long. At 1877 a core formed only for only some 48 houses could be found in place.

From the last third of the 19th century, this situation changes. The impact of the industrialitzation shook also this place that became an industrial neighbourhood, with predominance of the metallurgical and textile sectors. From this moment an urbanization process starts and the name of "La Sagrera" remains only to the core zone of existent houses.

Also of this period, specifically of the 1877, dates the creation of the steam Tramway that connecting this neighbourhood with Horta-Guinardó. The connection between Barcelona and Horta done by year 1885 by means of the tram, meant, for extension, the communication of La Sagrera with Barcelona, a connection that strengthened with the electrifying of the line by the year 1901.

Because of the process of industrialisation of the zone highlights the opening of a factory the 1911 with the name of Hispano Suiza (renamed as ENASA on 1946). This factory 1971 was moved to the South (Zona Franca) by 1971. At present, on these terrains there is an important group of apartment buildinds, schools and a Park named Pegaso.

In this process that lasts until the present time, the houses and the workshops have been replaced during the last twenty years of the 20th century to many blocks of apartments along both sides of the Meridian avenue. The name Meridiana indicates its North-South alignment.

At present, the process of transformation of the neighbourhood keeps on, and has his maximum representativeness in the future station-intercanviador of the Sagrera, for where is foreseen that it will run the subway, trains of short distance "rodalia", regional and of high speed (as AVE or the French TGV), as well as urban buses and taxi cabs. The neighbourhood of the Sagrera is one of the best communicated areas by means of underground transport: rodalia R3 and R4, Underground line L1, Underground line L5, L9 and L10. These two last lines of Underground are still under construction. These elements make La Sagrera as one of the main cores of transport for the Barcelona city of the future.

Popular culture

The giant Sagrerina

Since the year 2003, La Sagrera has "gegantera group". The so-called "gegants", that is "Giants", are a popular folk amused by kids in all Catalonia and a gang of such giants is found in La Sagrera.

Entities

Also to see

External links

Coordinates: 41°25′20.49″N 2°11′10.75″E / 41.4223583°N 2.1863194°E / 41.4223583; 2.1863194

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/12/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.