Imperial College London will host the exhibition The role of engineering in times of war. Air-raid shelters in Barcelona. The exhibition features photographs of the air-raid shelters built in Barcelona during the Civil War by Ana Sánchez, as part of an artistic and research project curated together with historian Xavier Domènech.
From January 10 to February 28, 2025, the exhibition will be located at the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication on the South Kensington campus. The exhibition has been coordinated by Anna Riera, a professor of History of Science at this public university, and is supported by the Barcelona City Council and the Instituto Cervantes. London will be the second British city to host it, after it traveled to Manchester last June.
The photographs that will be on display in London were part of the 2023 exhibition 1.322. Barcelona Air-Raid Shelters, produced by the Barcelona City Council in the former Modelo prison. With images and documents preserved for eight decades in British archives, the exhibition promoted by Imperial College London will incorporate the impact of Barcelona's shelters on the civil defense of the United Kingdom on the eve of the Blitz, a little-known influence that connects the Civil War with the Second World War, in the year in which its 80th anniversary will be celebrated.