Modern neighborhoods: 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: 17.7% between 1960 and 1975. The so-called baby boom, the consequence of better standards of living for families, was combined with a strong commitment to industrialization, tourism, and services, which resulted in an intense exodus from rural areas. In cities, this translated into a dizzying growth in the residential fabric, with the creation of numerous peripheral neighbourhoods that became, in many cases, laboratories for modernity.

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

Residential urban planning had been one of the main drivers of modern architecture since its beginnings internationally: the Siedlungen during the interwar period, the CIAM, and the Interbau, among other examples, generated a habitat in which careful planning and moderation extended from domestic industrial design to land management. In the Spanish context, however, its influence was generally limited, with notable examples of isolated housing complexes, mainly in urban areas.

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

The new neighbourhoods, generally located on the outskirts of large cities, were not devoid of territorial and cultural references: architects adopted strategies that were inspired by local culture in how the space was organized, that adapted to geographical conditions, offered protection from a harsh environment, or generated new urban landmarks. Location was no longer a constraint but became a design premise.

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

The relocation of families from their places of origin to the urban peripheries led to a decontextualization not only in their ways of living – the idea of home, the spatial syntax, or the ways of using housing and shared spaces – but also, and no less importantly, in their social contexts. Neighbourhood life replaced village life, and urban developments responded with services, nearby public spaces, and architectural configurations that favoured human proximity over the hopelessness of urban loneliness and isolation.

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

Still today, modern neighbourhoods constitute a significant proportion of the urban fabric of Spanish cities, both in terms of their surface area and for their role in the collective imagination. In recent years, many of them have been the subject of rehabilitation, regeneration, and research projects, with the goal of adapting them to contemporary living conditions without sacrificing the preservation of their heritage values. In these processes, the role of the local community and the memories of the inhabitants are key elements in the interventions, along with conscious, sensitive, and integrated urban policies.

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