The Patacada shelter was built between 1937 and 1938, it had almost five hundred meters of galleries, with five entrances and capacity for 1.200 people. The Reus City Council recovers it to open it to the public as a museum and historical space and organizes guided tours.

The visit consists of a tour of the underground galleries of the Pataca shelter, the third largest that was built in Reus during the Spanish Civil War. You can also visit the "Reus sota les bombes" interpretation space, with abundant information and graphic documentation about the bombings carried out by the Italian air force in the service of General Franco, the serious human and material losses suffered by the city and the 'gigantic effort to build anti-aircraft shelters carried out by the citizens of Reus.

The shelter is accessed via stairs that take the visitor to a newly built room, located at a depth of about 9 meters, at the bottom of which is the entrance to the shelter's gallery. The ceiling of this room coincides with the surface level, allowing the visitor to visualize the true depth of the shelter.

This room hosts the "Reus sota les bombes" reception and interpretation area of ​​the Patacada shelter, which is structured in three areas: historical contextualization, the gallery of bombings and the gallery of destruction

Area 1: The historical context
There is an informative panel illustrated with unpublished images about the consequences of the fascist bombings on Reus, the construction of shelters and the hard daily life in the city, from the Ramon Perera Fund, preserved in the Abbey Archives of Montserrat. There are also municipal plans from the time on the Patacada refuge, the network of refuges in the city and the effects of the bombings on the urban center. It consists of four sections, with texts in four languages.

The second area: the Bombardment Gallery
It shows eight aerial photographs of 150 x 100 cm taken by the crew of the Italian bombers of the Aviazione Legionaria delle Baleari (from the Archivo Àngelo Emiliani, Faenza, Italy) that capture the moment of the impact of the bombs on the city ​​of Reus. The images correspond to eight bombings carried out between January and June 1938. A foot identifies the day and time of the attack and its main consequences. The photos capture some of the most tragic moments that popular memory has preserved most about the bombings of Reus, such as the carnage caused by the impact of a bomb at the entrance to the shelter in Plaça de la Llibertat or the partial destruction of Casa Navàs, the modernist jewel of the city.

The third area: the gallery of destruction
The section of a cube of 143 x 143 cm. that protrudes from one of the walls of the room presents the backlit images of the devastation of the city, from various funds and archives. The photos are inserted in a grid of five frames per side and show the destruction of all types of buildings caused by the bombings.