Modern Neighbourhoods: Place, Society, and Technology

Everyone to the City: The Response of Modern Architecture and Urban Planning to the Major Demographic Changes in 20th-Century Spain.

In the second half of the 20th century, the economic recovery associated with developmentalist policies led to the highest population growth in Spanish history: in just 15 years, from 1960 to 1975, the population grew from 30.4 to 35.8 million inhabitants. This phenomenon was due to the combination of a series of political, economic, and social circumstances that had an unmistakable urban impact.

Although the changes in Spain began in the 1950s,¹ the turning point in this process is usually cited as 1959, the date of the Stabilization Plan that led to a new economic policy characterized by the liberalization of foreign trade, the entry of foreign capital and, more generally, the integration of the national economy into an international context. From 1961 to 1973, the annual increase in national income was above 9%, a record figure, although the growth was concentrated in certain cities and provinces.

The demographic evolution also led to an enormous inequality between provinces: while certain territories, mainly inland, were losing population (an average of 400,000 people moved within the country each year between 1961 and 1974), others (major cities and coastal areas) were growing due to both internal immigration and the natural growth associated with the increase in birth rates – the so-called baby boom – combined with a considerable increase in life expectancy.

These population movements were conditioned by a change in the country’s production and employment structures: beginning from a fundamentally agricultural foundation, some areas experienced industrialization processes, tourism boomed in others, and there was an effect of tertiarization across urban areas. Cities thus became sources of more and better employment, as well as places with more sociocultural and educational opportunities, and better public services.

The resulting growth of the residential urban fabric led, in turn, to significant technical innovations: state laws and development plans, major revisions of planning regulations, and strong tools for the transformation and generation of residential housing on the urban periphery² which entailed a profound reflection on ways of living and the definitive introduction of the precepts of modern international architecture into the daily life of citizens.

From those Winds, this Breeze: The Arrival of Modernism and Its Influence on Spanish Urban Residential Architecture

If we were to choose one key theme or architectural typology that stood at the centre of the debate on the beginnings of modern architecture internationally, it would undoubtedly be collective housing. A clear example of this are the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM). CIAM II, held in Frankfurt in 1929, dealt with minimum housing, CIAM V, in Paris in 1937, focused on housing and leisure, while CIAM IX, in Aix-en-Provence, led to the Charte de l’Habitat [Habitat Charter], and CIAM X in Dubrovnik incorporated reflections on the habitat developed by Team X. Documents like the Athens Charter, the result of CIAM IV, held en route between Marseille to Athens, looked at residential urbanism as one of its central questions.

Urban housing thus became the true laboratory of ideas for the new architecture: from the experiments with the housing estates, or Siedlungen, in interwar Germany,³ which presented true examples of early modern urbanism in peripheral neighbourhoods in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Hamburg, to later experiments like the Interbau of 1957, which focused on the reconstruction of the Hansa district and became a symbol of the architecture-based regeneration of a devastated West Berlin. The precepts of modernity were turned into a carefully modulated and measured system designed to encompass every aspect and any scale of living: from domestic objects, with their roots in academia like the Bauhaus or the Ulm School, to territorial planning, with the development of linear cities or Le Corbusier’s V7 concept for roads, and the typological experiments with collective housing or eminent examples of urban plans.

In Spain, the introduction of these currents was late and limited. The reconstruction after the war was not immediate, but beginning in the 1950s, and especially in the second half of that decade, there was a widespread renewal in collective housing.⁴ Up to that point, most examples of the introduction of these architectural styles into collective housing in Spain occurred in isolated instances, in consolidated urban areas or early expansion areas; they tested typologies, volumes, and treatments that gradually integrated the ideas of the Modern Movement into the national urban landscape.

In the public sphere, the creation of large housing complexes was led by the National Housing Institute, which existed between 1939 and 1980, along with a number of other public and charitable organizations: municipal boards, the Catholic church, the Trade Union Housing Organization, the Board of Military Housing, and the General Directorate of Devastated Regions and Repairs, among others. Starting in 1949, with the celebration of the V National Assembly of Architects, and through 1959, with the Stabilization Plan, neighbourhoods were developed that would represent the beginnings of modern architecture in Spain, while looking to address the problem of the large numbers of families living in informal housing and shantytowns on the outskirts of major cities. This effort involved the participation of prominent architects with extensive international experience and undeniable technical expertise.⁵

The neighbourhoods of the Congrès Eucarístic in Barcelona, the absorption neighbourhoods, directed settlements, and minimal housing in Madrid,⁶ the experimental housing competition that gave rise to the Puerta Bonita complex in Madrid, and the experimental housing competition of 1956 are some good examples where the aim is not just to reduce the cost and speed in the execution of the social housing, but also to present new possibilities such as the use of prefabricated materials, industrialization, directed self-construction, standardization, and minimal housing.

Following the creation of the Ministry of Housing, drawing on the Land Law of 1957, public developments contributed to the creation of new urban residential areas: construction companies and cooperatives focused on generating affordable housing for the working class, while public and charitable projects continued to be built. The phenomenon became widespread in the 1960s, with modern principles fully adopted in both housing design and urban planning. This led to examples of bold, daring architecture, not exclusively in public developments, which became symbols of the new urbanism and which were responsible for the greatest growth on the urban periphery in the history of Spain.

Place as a Premise: The Generation of Urban Space in Peripheral Contexts

In the vast majority of cases, the new construction activity centred on building large residential complexes far away from the existing urban fabric. The teams and architects in charge of the various actions, which generally combined planning, urban design, and architectural design, faced the difficult task of creating a city where there were hardly any pre-existing conditions. A variety of strategies were used in these efforts. As a fundamental pursuit, and following the precepts of the international modern architecture that inspired them, the designs carefully considered issues such as sunlight and ventilation in the homes, which conditioned decisions that were not only typological but fundamentally associated with implementation, planning, and the relationship between buildings and open spaces.

In many cases, the focus was on generating a unique residential ecosystem, reducing the boundary conditions to two basic issues: connectivity and sightlines. In the Canillas Directed Settlement, Luis Cubillo’s urban layout embraces the planned Absorption Settlement, of a smaller size, and carefully organizes the building typology into strips: to the north, next to the road, the twelve-story towers that act as a barrier alongside the church; in the centre, the four-storey blocks and the services; and, to the south and east, in contact with the natural environment, the two-storey single-family homes. The intermediate spaces are designed on a neighbourhood scale: straight roads are avoided and intersections are eliminated to reduce vehicle speed, while a detailed plan of plant species is provided for the gardens between the homes.

In other cases, architecture compensates for the absence of territorial references by establishing itself as an urban landmark. In Estrelles Altes, Bonet Castellana developed a high-rise residential complex at an intersection in southwest Barcelona, contributing to the expansion of the city in the transitional landscape between the industrial fabric and agricultural land. The project proposed the creation of a new visual landmark through the design of towers with a cross shape in plan, in a perfect geometric arrangement that follows a checkerboard pattern, alternating with lower-rise spaces that concentrate community and commercial uses. Contrasting with the forceful geometry, the use of exposed brick with a pattern that adds texture, along with the terrace railings and whitewashed façades, suggest a material connection with the local architectural culture.

A Home on the Outskirts: Neighbourhoods as Strategies for Social Construction to Prevent Alienation

The rural exodus of the second half of the 20th century in Spain not only involved the displacement of millions of people: families also moved their culture, their ways of life, and their understanding of domestic space, which they needed to adapt to completely unfamiliar spaces, designed under parameters that were meant to improve habitability and health, but also to reduce costs and to increase density and to maximize the speed of design and execution. Although the projects were not always built in their entirety, which led to situations of isolation and segregation, especially for the most vulnerable groups,⁷ the proposals aimed to address this issue, fundamentally, from urban planning: community spaces were created, neighbourhood services were provided, the road layouts were carefully designed with a system of hierarchies, landscaping projects were developed for the public spaces, and the built volumes were organized with an eye to a necessary human scale, contrasting with the lack of personal references in mass-produced architecture.

Collective residential architecture also offered a response to this issue, providing places for neighbourly coexistence even under the most uncertain conditions: in the Hortaleza Neighbourhood Absorption Unit, designed as temporary housing for families from shantytowns – which ended up becoming permanent, the blocks are arranged in pairs of rows that enclose a central courtyard and are surrounded by wide galleries, like terraces, for access, similar to the corralas of traditional architecture in Madrid.

These kinds of solutions are not exclusive to urban peripheries; rather, they become recurring design resources. In the houses on calle Taray in Segovia, located next to the historic centre and adjacent to a natural slope, the diversity in the massing and height is complemented by the inclusion of a series of galleries which are cut into the interior face of the residential spaces that surround the block or cross above the open spaces in the form of metal walkways. They run around the entire complex in a three-dimensional system and recreate, in section, the complexity of the layout of the old streets, providing small open spaces for the exclusive use of residents, corridors for community socializing, and an interior garden associated with a small nursery school. The use of colour in the concrete, stone masonry, and tile roofs clearly demonstrates the effort to assimilate the construction style as part of the local culture.

Looking to the Future: Emergencies and Opportunities in Modern Neighbourhoods in Spain

Despite the passage of time, modern neighbourhoods still play a leading role in the Spanish urban landscape for various reasons. First, they continue to occupy large areas of urban land in many of the cities that became major population centres between the 1950s and 1970s. They have become part of the everyday urban landscape and repositories of collective memory. They have seen three and even four generations, with varying degrees of alteration; essentially, however, they have kept their typological, material, functional and, especially, urban characteristics.

On the other hand, the acknowledgment of their spatial, material, territorial, social, and even documentary value has led to a recognition of these complexes as heritage in a process that has sometimes clashed with a lack of appreciation from a portion of society,⁸ due to the lack of acceptance of their formal characteristics or because of their ties to difficult historical events, which have negative associations in popular opinion. However, more recently, they have gained more recognition; they have been given protection as cultural and urban heritage⁹ and, in many cases, they have become the object of research focused on improving the criteria for intervention, with efforts to overcome legal, economic, social, and cultural obstacles.¹⁰ It is no coincidence that the second of the Iberian Docomomo Foundation’s thematic registries is dedicated to modern housing between 1925 and 1965,¹¹ or that the third issue of the Revista de Arquitecturas Modernas is called “From the Block to the Neighbourhood”. Indeed, the first step towards the contemporary re-examination of these works of architecture lies in their identification, documentation, and subsequent dissemination.

Another driver for the significance of modern neighbourhoods in the current landscape has come from research promoted by scientific and academic institutions. Good examples are the projects focused on the Barriada del Carmen in Seville (Luis Recaséns, 1955-1958) and the Virgen del Carmen complex in Valencia (GO-DB, 1958-1962).¹² These efforts have been centred on generating methodologies for a current investigation of architectural complexes and urban planning developments, focusing on expert knowledge and the search for technical solutions for their rehabilitation, but also on citizen involvement in the process of identifying values and making decisions for the future.

From a technical and professional standpoint, and on the part of the relevant public administrations, there have been notable cases showing that another approach to intervening in modern neighbourhoods is possible. Examples include the rehabilitation of Secundino Zuazo’s Ciudad de los Ángeles (1956–1961), which involved the participation of local groups,¹³ along with the work commissioned by the Ministry of Mobility, Transport and Urban Agenda to identify strategies for adapting these architectural styles, as far as possible, to the requirements of the Technical Building Code.^{14 y 15}

In the current context of crisis associated with the climate, energy, and society, it is worth highlighting the opportunity to work on modern neighbourhoods to improve the quality of life for their many current and future inhabitants. The interventions must be sensitive and consensual, with public administrations involved in a fluid dialogue with experts and residents. The actions should be comprehensive and transdisciplinary, ensuring proper documentation and assessment, spatial and typological adaptation, a modernization of habitability and comfort conditions, the recovery of spaces for socialization, and the improvement of green, familiar, diverse, safe and welcoming public spaces.¹²

_{This article was produced in relation to the project «Incorporación del estudiantado de arquitectura a la difusión, documentación y tutela de la arquitectura y el urbanismo del movimiento moderno mediante la metodología de aprendizaje-servicio con la Fundación Docomomo Ibérico», IV Plan Propio de Docencia de la Universidad de Sevilla, Ref. 221, Mod. B, ID 2590, with no specific funding from the later.}

Notas

_{1 RODRÍGUEZ OSUNA, Jacinto,  “Distribución espacial de la población y desarrollo económico en España”, in Revista Española De Investigaciones Sociológicas 4, 1978, pp. 103–127.}

_{2 NAVAS CARRILLO, Daniel, OSTOS PRIETO, Javier, RODRÍGUEZ LORA, Juan Andrés, “Housing policy in Spain between 1939 and 1976. The residential phenomenon as a catalyst for urban growth”, in International Humanities Review 18(2), 2023, pp. 1–17.}

_{3 SAINZ GUERRA, José Luis, coord., Las Siedlungen alemanas de los años 20. Frankfurt, Berlín, Hamburgo, Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Castilla y León Este, Valladolid, 1995.}

_{4 SANZ ALARCÓN, Juan Pedro, “Contextualización del origen de la vivienda social moderna española”, in P+C, proyecto y ciudad. Revista de temas de arquitectura, vol. 2, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Área de Proyectos Arquitectónicos, Cartagena, 2011, pp. 93-104.}

_{5 SAMBRICIO RIVERA ECHEGARAY, Carlos, ed., Un siglo de vivienda social. 1903-2003, Ministerio de Fomento, Ayuntamiento de Madrid-EMV y Consejo Económico y Social, Madrid, 2003.}

_{6 ESTEBAN MALUENDA, Ana, “La vivienda social española en la década de los 50: Un paseo por los poblados dirigidos de Madrid”, in VPOR2 Revista de vivienda 7, 2009, pp. 18-23.}

_{7 GALLEGOS RODRÍGUEZ, Reyes, Ellas en la ciudad [documentary], Las Afueras Producciones, 2025.}

_{8 DÍEZ MEDINA, Carmen, MONCLÚS, Javier, La ciudad de bloques. Reflexiones retrospectivas y prospectivas sobre los polígonos de vivienda “modernos”, Abada editores, Madrid, 2020.}

_{9 PÉREZ-CANO, María Teresa, NAVAS-CARRILLO, Daniel, MOSQUERA-ADELL, Eduardo, “Formas urbanas patrimoniales: la modernidad sostenible. La configuración del tejido urbano residencial del siglo XX en Andalucía en un contexto internacional”, in Ciudad y Territorio Estudios Territoriales 54(M), 2022, pp. 131-154.}

_{10 RUBIO DEL VAL, Juan, MOLINA COSTA, Patricia, “Estrategias, retos y oportunidades en la rehabilitación de los polígonos de vivienda construidos en España entre 1940 y 1980”, in Ciudades 13, 2017, pp. 15-37.}

_{11 CENTELLAS SOLER, Miguel, JORDÁ SUCH, Carmen, LANDROVE BOSSUT, Susana, coords., La vivienda moderna: registro Docomomo ibérico, 1925-1965,  Fundación Caja de Arquitectos/Fundación Docomomo Ibérico, Barcelona, 2009.}

_{12 GÓMEZ VILLA, José Luis, GARCÍA DE CASASOLA, Marta, DEL ESPINO HIDALGO, Blanca, coords., Re-HABITAR El Carmen. Un proyecto sobre patrimonio contemporáneo, Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Cultura y Patrimonio Histórico, Sevilla, 2019.}

_{13 GONZÁLEZ GONZÁLEZ, Francisco Javier, LASSO DE LA VEGA, Miguel, MORCILLO ÁLVAREZ, Daniel, “La rehabilitación de la Ciudad de los Ángeles de Secundino Zuazo y la gestión vecinal en la recuperación del patrimonio”, in Revista PH 104, Instituto Andaluz de Patrimonio Histórico, 2021, pp. 198–213.}

_{14 GARCÍA BRAÑA, Celestino, LANDROVE BOSSUT, Susana, GARCÍA DE CASASOLA GÓMEZ, Marta, CASTELLANO BRAVO, Beatriz, DEL ESPINO HIDALGO, Blanca, GONZÁLEZ ARQUES, Soledad, “Estudio sobre estrategias de intervención en edificación residencial existente al objeto de lograr el mayor grado de adecuación efectiva al Código Técnico de la Edificación”, in RAM Docomomo Ibérico 2, 2025, Supplement 1.} 

_{15 The study involved the participation of the Eduardo Torroja Institute of Construction Sciences at the Higher Council for Scientific Research, the Higher Council of the Spanish Architects’ Associations of Spain, the Iberian Docomomo Foundation, the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage, and the University of Valladolid. The case studies were the following: the Virgen del Carmen Residential Complex in Seville, the Neighbourhood Unit for the Pío XII Cooperative in Segovia, and Neighbourhood Unit No. 3 in A Coruña.}