MUHBA Refugi 307

Refugi 307 is one of the bomb shelters built during the Spanish Civil War to protect the population from the indiscriminate bombing to which Barcelona was subjected. It was excavated thanks to the efforts of the people of the Poble Sec district. It is one of over 1,000 bomb shelters built in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, and is a good example of passive defence in the city, in which the Republican Army, the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government), the City Council and the people of Barcelona all played a part.

The shelter has three entrances onto Carrer Nou de la Rambla, and comprises nearly 400 metres of tunnels, with a height of 2.10 metres and a width of between 1.5 and 2 metres. It has a number of different facilities, including toilets, a water fountain, an infirmary, a children's room, and a fireplace. Visitors can imagine the anguish suffered by the people of the city during the Civil War, when they were forced to face a new phenomenon: the bombing of the civil population, a military practice that had only been briefly tried out during the First World War, and the fact that Barcelona was being used as a test city for the bombing of civilians that would be perpetrated during the Second World War in the rest of Europe.

Refugi 307 is one of the finest examples of a bomb shelter built in Barcelona, and has now also become a veritable memorial to people's struggle to survive in the face of adversity.

Guide to the centre 
Plan of Refugi 307
The underground experience
A new way of waging war
Organising against the bombings