The New Palau: What Else Is Possible?
Free Music School
Spain
The New Palau is a series of community lunches at the Free Music School in Barcelona inviting neighbors, migrants, artists, and people experiencing housing precarity to imagine new futures for the abandoned Palau dels Esports. Built for the 1955 Mediterranean Games, the building now stands largely unused while housing insecurity grows across Mediterranean cities. The Free Music School is located directly across the street from the Palau. Through shared meals and conversation participants imagine alternatives such as housing, indoor gardens, cultural workshops, and cooperative workspaces.
The New Palau is a series of community lunches hosted at the Free Music School in Barcelona inviting neighbors, migrants, artists, and people experiencing housing precarity to collectively imagine new futures for the abandoned Palau dels Esports. Built for the 1955 Mediterranean Games, the building now stands largely unused while housing insecurity and social fragmentation grow across Mediterranean cities. Over six months the project will organize four community lunches bringing together 20–30 participants per gathering. Through shared meals and open conversation, participants will imagine alternative uses for the building such as housing, indoor gardens, cultural workshops, and cooperative workspaces. The lunches are hosted in collaboration with Associació SomlaClau, led by Chiara Monterotti. The project will also commission short essays from Dr. Barbara Adams, Xavier Acarín Wieland, and Tiago Da Cruz. Composer and board member Helio Reguera will record sounds and conversations from the gatherings and develop an album titled The New Palau: What Else Is Possible? The project will culminate in a small exhibition at the Free Music School opening during the final lunch.