Sociedad cooperativa «La obrera mataronense» (The “La obrera mataronense” [Mataró Workers’] Cooperative)

Workers’ cooperatives were organisations created by workers in search of a solution to the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions brought about by mass migration from country to city. They were designed to ensure the wellbeing of their members by creating high-quality, affordable housing and services such as education and healthcare.

La Obrera Mataronense was one such cooperative, founded in 1864. In 1873, it acquired land in the Catalan town of Mataró with the aim of building a factory and a housing complex for workers. It was in this period that Salvador Pagès, manager of the cooperative, commissioned the initial work to a young Antoni Gaudí, who at the time was concerned with the problems facing the working class and influenced by the socialist theories of Karl Marx and the anarchist theories of Mikhail Bakunin. However, it wasn’t until he graduated as an architect in 1878 that Gaudí definitively carried out the design for La Obrera Mataronense.

Gaudí’s project was published in 1881 and comprised a casino, a factory and a neighbourhood for workers’ housing. Of the plans for the factory, only the cotton-bleaching warehouse would be constructed, a building that is notable for Gaudí’s catenary arches, which were built for the first time. The cooperative’s financial struggles meant that this project of utopian socialism would never be realised.



Juan Carlos Rodríguez Pérez