In 1985 an urban project sentenced the demolition of most of Montgat’s sea baths (Montgat is a small town north of Barcelona). This demolition followed the trend, current throughout all the twentieth century, to reconfigure the waterfronts on the basis of commodification and tourist-oriented parameters, rather than to respond to local and self-managed criterias for the use of the beaches. In this text, Eva MOYANO SIVECAS, philosopher with anthropological interests, describes the habits, customs and social relations that governed the summer use of the beach in Montgat from the late twenties up to the present, and how their destruction more than just involving the disappearance of a valuable set of inherited sites, important both historically and architecturally, it represented the dissolution of very close neighbourhood relations and the loss of identity for Montgat.
- Eva MOYANO SIVECAS (2015) “L’estiueig popular a la costa barcelonesa: crònica dels banys de Montgat (in catalan)