Barcelona's La Model: From Social Experiment to Symbol of Repression to Community Space
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La Model as seen from Carrer de Rosello in 2017. Photo by Enric (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
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Patio of La Model (2019), photo by Enric (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
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La Modelo (2017) photo by Jorge Franganillo (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
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La Modelo (2017), photo by Jorge Franganillo (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
The oldest and most important prison in Catalunya is getting a makeover. The city has announced plans to dismantle La Model in 2026, which will free up space equivalent to a city block and a half in Nova Esquerra de l'Eixample, between the streets of Roselló, Provença, Nicaragua and Entença. In its place, Barcelona can expect to see an island of services designed to serve the local community, without forgetting the importance of La Model to its past.
An Experiment in Prisoner Rehabilitation
Located in the neighborhood of Eixample in Barcelona, La Model was built according to an innovative system created by English philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was a child prodigy who began studying Latin when he was three years old and attended Queen’s College Oxford when he was twelve; he would later become known for promoting utilitarian ideals and for his harsh critiques of 19th-century society.
The panopticon penitentiary system is a plan he first published in 1787; based on his younger brother Samuel’s “central inspection principle,” a concept Samuel developed while working in Russia. While the original aim was to facilitate the training and supervision of unskilled workers by implementing a centralized system of surveillance, Jeremy Benthan saw the possibilities when applied to incarcerated populations. The panopticon prison model involves groups of individual, isolated cells radiating out from a central observation tower; this design permits a consolidation of control, both logistical and psychological. The sensation of being under constant watch was intended to “encourage” prisoners to behave, essentially promoting discipline for fear of reprisals.
Photograph of La Model in 1904, photographer unknown.
The construction of La Model was entrusted to the Catalan architects Josep Domènech i Estapà and Salvador Vinyals i Sabaté, who began work on the building in 1881; it was finally inaugurated as a men’s prison in 1904. The name “La Model” was chosen because it was intended to serve as an example (or model) for modern prison reform. The role of a prison in early 20th-century society was slowly changing: rather than function as simply a form of punishment, jail was increasingly seen as an environment where prisoners might be rehabilitated before being reintroduced into society. It is for this reason that the prisoners in the La Model prison were made to attend Catholic Mass and lectures on morality while serving out their sentences.
The central polygon of the building housed the guards, and six galleries containing approximately one hundred cells each extended outward from the center. Each gallery contained a different class of prisoner: for example, first-time offenders were housed in one gallery; repeat offenders with generally tractable attitudes were housed in another; problematic repeat offenders who were prone to resistance in another; prisoners condemned to solitary confinement in another; etc. Other attached structures served as the prison’s infirmary, kitchen, workshops, dining rooms, warehouses, chapel, nursing home and administration building. There was also a waiting room and a visiting room, as well as an outdoor garden and several courtyards.
Prisoners at Modelo prison watch from the galleries the celebration of a mass during the festival of La Mercè, in September 1941 Photo by Pérez de Rozas courtesy of Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona.
Crime and Punishment Under Franco
La Model became an ugly symbol of oppression, first under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship from 1923 to 1930, and later under Francisco Franco’s regime. During this time, it was often used to house political prisoners, especially in the years immediately following the Spanish Civil War. Many of these prisoners were student protesters, trade union activists and strikers, homosexuals, beggars, sex workers—essentially, any individual thought to be resistant to the dictatorship, or to represent a “bad moral influence” on society at large. These non-violent prisoners were mixed into the general prison population with violent criminals; abuses such as rape and beatings were common, but the prison guards rarely intervened.
Huge quantity of arrests during this period lead to massive overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. In 1939, there were over 30,000 prisoners crammed into a facility that had been designed to house under 1000; that meant that were sometimes sixteen people to a cell that had been designed to house only one person. These hellish levels of overcrowding continued into the 1940s; in later decades, the number of inmates dropped, but prisoners would still be forced to sleep six or seven to a cell.
A number of political prisoners would go on to become important names in Catalan history, such as Lluís Companys, who later became President of Cataluyna from 1933 to 1940, and Jordi Pujol, who was the Catalan President from 1980 through 2003, among others. However, not all of the political prisoners would make it out of La Model.
In La Model under the Franco regime, 24 documented executions were carried out by means of "garrote vil," a torture machine that had be used in Spain since the Middle Ages. Here, an illustration of execution by "garrote vil" of Gregoria Foix y Rambla and Victoriano Ubierna cir. 1872. Image courtesy of Biblioteca Digital de Castilla y León (Public Domain).
Under Franco, there were often nightly executions. Some of these were carried out by firing squad, though 24 documented executions were carried out by means of the garrote vil, a torture machine that had be used to perform executions in Spain since the Middle Ages. Depending on the level of experience of the executioner and the state of repair of the mechanism, the death could be quick—the spinal column immediately severed—or a slow and agonizing process of choking to death.
The last official execution to take place at the prison was in 1974; celebrated anarchist Salvador Puig Antich was convicted of robbing a bank and killing a police officer in the process. However, Puig’s family would work to clear his name after the dictatorship ended, and in February 2025, his sentence was officially vacated by the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, citing that the tribunal that had convicted him was “illegal and illegitimate.”
Memorial to Salvador Puig Antich on the 50th anniversary of his execution in La Model. Image courtesy of Govern de Catalunya (Public Domain) via Wikimedia Commons.
La Model and the Modern Age
In 1955, La Model became a mixed penitentiary—a men’s and a women’s prison—when La presó barcelonina de Les Corts (a women’s prison), run by the Catholic organization called the Daughters of Charity, was closed to make room for an El Corte Inglés at the Plaça de la Reina Maria Cristina. La Model housed 263 women and 19 children transferred from there. This state of affairs lasted until 1963, when the female inmates were all transferred to the new Trinitat Vella women’s prison, which was itself later converted into a center for minors.
Restored to its original state as an all-male prison, it continued to suffer from violence, overcrowding, and in the 1970s and 1980s, from severe epidemics of heroin and other illegal drugs. Prison riots and even escapes were not uncommon. Meanwhile, the size and shape of the city had significantly changed since the La Model had first been built; as Barcelona expanded during the 19th and 20th-century industrial boom, the building was swallowed up by the expanding metropolis. Rather than occurring on the outskirts of town, the horror and mayhem contained inside the prison was happening right in the middle of bourgeois Barcelona.
The Urban Regulations of the General Metropolitan Plan of 1976 declared that La Model should be seen as an disruptive anomaly in the residential neighborhood of Eixample—that the building should be removed, and the space allocated for a purpose that would better serve the local community. In 1984, the infamous French mob boss Raymond Vaccarizzi was murdered while serving time at the prison: a sniper shot him when he went to a street-facing window to see his wife, who had come to visit him.
Protests from both inside and outside the prison continued, citing unsanitary prison conditions and danger to the residents of the neighborhood. In 1995, the Catalan Parliament finally approved a motion that recommended the construction of more modern penitentiary facilities, which would allow for older prisons like La Model to be closed. The Barcelona City Council also created a committee tasked with studying the possibility of moving the jail outside the city limits.
In addition to exhibits, La Model is now used to host concerts, talks and community centered events. Photo by Xavi Torrent courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Renovation and Community Services
In 2000, the facility was granted Level C protection as an architectural heritage site, which meant that the historically important aspects of the building should be maintained, even if the prison itself should close. In 2009, the initial plan for the renovation and redistribution of the space of La Model into spaces that would serve the community was approved, along with plans to close the prison. The organization Decidim Barcelona was tasked with the participatory public process of deciding what was to be done with this symbol of past oppression. The information-gathering and decision-making process was to be carried out with the transparency demanded by the updated Citizen Participation Regulations stipulated by the Barcelona City Council.
The Barcelona City Council became the official owner of La Model in 2014. The penitentiary closed on June 8, 2017, one day before what would have been its 113th anniversary; since then, it has been open to the public for free visits on Friday through Sunday, as long as it’s not an official holiday. (School groups can also book guided tours for educational visits through the official website.) The interior spaces have been utilized as temporary exposition spaces for artists and non-profit groups.
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La model, photo by Laura Guerrero courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0).
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Image from the 2017 exhibit "La Modelo Nos Habla. 113 Años. 13 Historias." Photo by Jorge Franganillo (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
The outdoor patio of La Model is open all week long, with shorter visiting hours on Sundays. Since 2017, this space has frequently been the site of protests and solidarity events, such as the concert for freedom of speech organized by No Callarem in reaction to the arrests of rappers, musicians and social media influencers for supposedly violating Spain's notorious gag law.
While the first visitors were exploring the now-empty halls of La Model, Decidim Barcelona continued to collect data pertaining to historic precedent, current public sentiment, and community needs in order to determine La Model’s eventual fate. The local government called for a competition for project proposals to be presented in 2020.
Meanwhile, in 2023, the City Council had also announced a parallel competition for the La Model Espacio Memorial, or “Memorial Space” project, which will occupy part of La Model’s central panopticon, as well as the fourth gallery of cells—this is where the greatest number of political prisoners had historically been kept. The project will take up three floors and ten individual cells, which will serve as “museums cells,” each one dedicated to a different theme related to the history of La Model and its former inmates. Its goal is to keep the social and historical significance of La Model’s history alive through visits, talks, roundtable discussions, conferences and other activities.
The winning design chosen for La Model is from Forgas Arquitectos, SLP / Planas Esquius Segatti, SCP. Image courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona.
In 2024, the City Council announced that they had selected the winning proposals, which will guide the laborious process of reshaping of La Model’s overall facilities and grounds. The future renovations were designed based on principles of inclusivity, plurality and diversity, with an eye towards making the space accessible to the most vulnerable members of society: the oldest and youngest citizens, as well as persons who belong to any marginalized group or who are at risk of social exclusion. The proposal also calls for all remodeling to respect and maintain the historically significant aspects of the original building.
The city plans to build a public park, as well as municipal facilities such as a sports center, an assisted living center for the elderly, affordable housing, and a nursery school. The renovations will also include the construction of a subterranean energy plant and groundwater tank, in order to provide a sustainable solution for all the facility’s energy and hydration needs. All of this is projected to cost approximately 20 million euros, half of which will be paid for by the city; the other half will be financed by the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Work is expected to begin in early 2026, with the goal of making the school—the Institut Escola Xirinac—ready for its first students in the 2027-2028 academic year.
In a press release published on December 28, 2024, the Generalitat de Catalunya announced that restoration work had begun on the murals of the Gypsy Chapel in La Model Prison. Image: mural detail of a group of prisoners by Gabriel Gómez. (Public Domain)
The Gypsy Chapel
The remodeling of La Model’s interior will include the restoration of The Gypsy Chapel, a mural created by Seville-born painter, visual artist and poet Helios Gómez. He was considered to be one of the eminent Spanish graphic artists of his generation; however, he was also a militant anarchist and open supporter of trade unions, which lead to multiple arrests, including his arrest for “illegal association and promoting propaganda” under Franco.
In 1950, the prison’s spiritual advisor asked Gómez to paint a fresco dedicated to Our Lady of Mercy: the patron saint of the City of Barcelona, as well as that of prisoners. The artist, who had proud gitano roots, chose to depict Mary as the Black Madonna, and the other protagonists of the scene as tormented, half-starved, half-naked gypsy prisoners, their limbs tangled in a thorny vine that represented their incarceration.
This striking image adorned one of the cells, which was used as an informal oratory and chapel for the prisoners—hence the name “gypsy chapel”—and a place for the last rites to be administered to inmates condemned to be executed. This cell was closed in the 1980s, and the mural painted over by the Catalan government’s prison authority for so-called “hygenic reasons” in 1998. Its restoration will enable this historically relevant and unique piece of art to be seen by the public for the first time.
La model, photo by Laura Guerrero courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona (CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0).
La Model
Carrer d'Entença 155, 08029 Barcelona
Fridays: 16:00-18:00 Saturdays: 10:00-14:00 & 16:00-18:00 Sundays: 10:00-14:00
Free