Paseo del Buen Pastor, Cordoba

Paseo del Buen Pastor is a cultural and leisure space set within a former religious and social institution. The complex began as a women’s asylum and correctional home run by the Good Shepherd Sisters, later serving as a women’s prison. On May 24, 1975, 26 young political prisoners escaped through a kitchen window while outside accomplices distracted the authorities.

Today, the restored site includes open spaces, galleries, cafés, and cultural rooms. Its Greek-cross chapel also reflects the prison’s former system of control. During mass, nuns could monitor inmates and young students from a central position, while iron bars kept the groups apart. Preserved arches, brickwork, courtyards, and chapel details still reflect this controlled religious setting.

The modern fountain area gives the site a very different atmosphere, but it also covers a darker layer of history: the prison’s punishment and isolation cells were once located beneath this part of the complex. In the mid-to-late 1970s, the facility served as a holding space between illegal detention centres and the formal prison system. Bronze figures and views of the nearby Capuchin church now contrast with this darker memory.