The current building of the public school 9 de Octubre, located in Paseo de la Petxina, was built between 1922 and 1925 with the purpose of housing a women’s prison.
Until 1991, it functioned as a women’s penitentiary and hundreds of women repressed by the Franco regime were imprisoned there. In this sense, it is the first and only building in the history of the city that was built and used for this purpose.
The Old Women’s Prison of Valencia was built, like most prisons, following the structure of the panopticon, from where the guards could observe the inmates at all times and they were deprived of all communication, even in their internal walks.
It is a space closely linked to the democratic memory of the city and now wants to be declared an Asset of Local Relevance (BRL), in the category of Historic Site of Local Interest, due to its artistic, historical and architectural value.
For the time being, the Valencia City Council’s Urban Planning Commission has agreed to propose the former prison as a BRL, although it will ultimately be up to the Generalitat to approve the proposal definitively.