Cotton stevedores’ houses

These dwellings were built by the Cotton Loaders and Unloaders Cooperative Society, set up by cotton stevedores at Barcelona port in 1925. For precisely that reason the passage is named after their patron saint. On 30 March 1926, the cooperative bought some land in the working-class quarter of Santa Eulàlia de Vilapicina. The houses were completed in 1928, when the Esperanza Workers’ Consumer Cooperative was set up.

An enterprising cooperative

Later the members bought some land to build a centre for the cooperative, on the corner of Carrer d’Arnau d’Oms and Carrer de la Jota. At first it served as a grocer’s, bar and meeting room. Later on, they bought an adjoining house on Carrer de la Jota and set up a cultural centre there. The building disappeared in the 1960s.

On the corner of Passatge de l’Esperança and Carrer d’Arnau d’Oms there is a plaque dedicated to Lluís Jover Castells, a cotton dealer and a leading promoter of the cooperative and the housing project.