Post-Civil War Spain used the countryside as a symbol and location for the reconstruction and modernization of the state. The book The Modern Village in Franco's Spain examines the reconstruction of the villages that were destroyed between 1936 and 1939. It analyzes the ideological, political, and urban planning principles of Franco's hydrosocial modernization program, which created new landscapes with dams, irrigation canals, power plants, and new settlements – a unique experiment in water urbanism.
The domestic colonization strategy led to the construction of 300 new villages, so-called pueblos. Each village was designed as a 'rural utopia' around a plaza mayor, which embodied the political ideal of the national-Catholic regime between tradition and modernity.
In the 1950s and 1960s, a new generation of architects, such as Jose Luis Fernandez del Amo, Alejandro de la Sota, and Antonio Fernandez Alba, reinterpreted these pueblos as experimental platforms. They aimed for an abstract rural style and an organic urban form that harmoniously blended into the landscape.
Language and usage
- Language: Spanish
- Language level: C1-C2
- Suitable for: education, cultural research, and self-study
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