Let the old room keep speaking.
In Barcelona’s Poblenou, a theatre occupies a former workers’ cooperative. Coloured glass, patterned floors and traces of earlier rooms give the new performances an older setting.
ES SpainIn practice. Flores & Prats converted the former Pau i Justícia cooperative in Poblenou into Sala Beckett’s theatre and drama centre.
What to keep in view
This is a completed architectural reuse project. Workshops, performances and hospitality have separate schedules and access conditions.
Keep what the neighbours remember
Flores & Prats found decoration still present in the abandoned Pau i Justícia cooperative: mosaic floors, timber doors, coloured glazing and ornamental details. These traces helped them understand a building once used for meetings, festivities and theatre.
Their conversion for Sala Beckett carries that social memory into spaces for performance and teaching. The old building is not simply a container for a new institution. Its surviving surfaces remain part of what makes an evening here different from an evening elsewhere.
Theatre before opening night
Sala Beckett’s programme includes shows, writing courses, creation residencies and activities for authors. There is work happening around the performance as well as on stage.
Choose a visit through that programme rather than treating the building as an attraction with guaranteed access to every room. For a show or course, check its language, dates and booking conditions. The architecture provides the setting; the people writing, rehearsing and watching give it its continuing purpose.
The programme includes shows, writing courses and other activities. Check language, dates and booking conditions for your chosen event.
Explore Sala Beckett’s programmeRead next.
The warehouse keeps its character.
Another conversion creates a place for performance. Compare a former cooperative in Barcelona with a railway warehouse in Riga.
The powerhouse stays switched on.
Follow the reuse of another historic building for art, education and a continuing public programme.