Farewell to the Provença fire station

Barcelona’s most iconic fire station is being torn down

The firefighters said goodbye to this station with a heavy heart; for some of them it was much more than a place of work. The building opened in 1932 and, until this year, it was home to the Eixample fire brigade. At the farewell party they held in January, they handed out an auca (a traditional Catalan rhyming broadsheet): ‘República, dictadura he resistit, i amb la democràcia seré destruït. Des de l’alcalde Aiguadé fins l’Hereu, la caserna ha estat en peu. 78 anys habitatada pels bombers de la ciutat’ (I survived the Republic and the dictatorship, and with democracy I will be destroyed. From Mayor Aiguadé to Hereu, the station has stood. 78 years lived in by the city’s firefighters.)

I got there too late for the photos: the street lamps and the classic ‘bombers’ sign that adorned the façade for so many years have already gone. Still, one of the firefighters tells me they’re being kept somewhere safe.

There are still firefighters sharing the building with the demolition works, which seem to be taking their time, since for now the workers come one day a week to knock down a wall or two. A little sad, but keen to know what will become of the place, one firefighter tells me stories about it. He has been in the brigade for more than 30 years. The one I’ve chosen to share with you is about the tower, some 60 m high, that stood in the station’s inner courtyard: from the top you could see the whole of Barcelona. As well as serving as a lookout over the city, it was used to dry the hoses, which in the old days were made of canvas, by hanging them from the top of the tower.

He also tells me that the first thing the firefighters took with them when they heard about the move was the statue at the side entrance: a life-size statue of a firefighter rescuing a little girl.

Although it’s being presented as a modernisation of the fire brigade, for me it’s another farewell to a piece of Barcelona’s history.

The site will be taken over by the Hospital Clínic’s new facilities which, however modern they may be, could have found some way to keep part of the façade in memory of the place.

Location: Carrer Provença 176, 08036 Barcelona

To see more photos, here.