During the Second Republic of Spain, Universitat de València decided to create a Students Residence, stablished in the same fashion as the one founded the Council for Studies Broadening from Madrid following the idea of the Free Education Institution. The rising against the Republic left the project supended and the victory of the rising in the civil war lead to a return of the Student Residence traditional model to locate the students.

Architect Javier Goerlich was in charge of the elaboration of a building Project that could house the initial republican idea of 1935 and the ideas that came after that, which corresponded to the war winners. This lead to the opening of the Luis Vives Student Residence of Universitat de València on the right side and the Alejandro Salazar of the Spanish University Sindicate on the left side.

From Goerlich’s original design –rationalist on the front, the dorms distribution, halls and rooms– the memory of the building comes from the lives and memories of those who lived there for over six decades. A necessary history that definded its identity while lighting its future. Its memories are deeper that mere dates, documents and images. They come from its inhabitants’ experiences, the intimate tales written over its walls, cultural activities that took place, conferences, menages, cinema, concerts and more.

Living in El Vives seeks to grasp back that history, the history of the people and the culture that it housed thanks to AV documents that were rescued from the institutional archives, family albums and other sources along with a selection of posters, tickets, pictures and videos of the poetry reading, theatre plays, movie projection and concerts from rock and pop to classic and electro.

Once the Students Residence Luis Vives, ground of development throughout the years of political and social tribulations, home of identity and history and scale of balance between memories, present and future.