Pere IV, from road to main street

On 27 July, the MUHBA has programmed a guided tour — El carrer de Pere IV, espina dorsal del Poblenou industrial — through the most emblematic places of this historic axis of the city, currently in the process of redefinition. 

For decades it was Mataró's main road and the city's main communication route towards the north. In the second half of the 19th century, a large number of steam-powered factories moved there from the walled city and transformed the area's agricultural landscape forever. 

The street, then, became one of the social representative spaces of the neighbourhood, and many of the athenaeums or cooperatives at the service of the workers, as well as some notable households, were built around it. This wide variety of uses that people have granted the area has created an ever-changing physiognomy along the street.

With the deindustrialisation of Barcelona's seafront from 1960 onwards, the Pere IV axis began to lose its centrality and accumulate underused spaces. More recently, the opening of the Diagonal and the Rambla del Poblenou even called into question its potential as the backbone of the neighbourhood.

Today, after three long decades of decline, it is becoming an axis oriented towards global innovation, well-integrated into Poblenou, to become a "major passage" with a civic vocation that links, along its 3.7 kilometres, the Ciutadella park with the Besòs.

The tour on 27 July lasts approximately two and a half hours and is part of an urban signage project created by the MUHBA and the District of Sant Martí, with the collaboration of the Poblenou Historical Archive, the Taula de l'Eix Pere IV, the Poblenou Neighbours' Association and other organisations.

The activity starts at the Bogatell stop of the L4 metro line and costs 8 euros. You can make your reservation at this link.