This is the product of three years of hard work by a large group of specialists who documented a total of 160 buildings and sites. The work was published with the title Arquitectura de la industria, 1925-1965. Registro DOCOMOMO Ibérico.
The close relationship between technical and scientific developments that nurtured the industrial transformation of modern societies and their spatial, constructional and functional repercussions as well as the effect on the forms and images is, still today, a field of study and research within various domains and areas of knowledge, in order to deepen our understanding and develop new analyses of a past that continues to shape the present.For architecture this theme refers back to many of the hopes for transformation and desires to create a different world. New requirements of mass production (and mass consumption) created needs that were analysed and interpreted as opportunities to form fresh images. These would translate into ways of living, icons, spaces and architecture that were all new.
Many structures completed before 1970 are no longer used, and people see them as a new type of ruin. They may disappear by being demolished and replaced, be maintained and reused or they can be preserved. These are urgent challenges with no simple solutions.
The Iberian DOCOMOMO aims to publicise the research by members of the Registration Committee of Iberian DOCOMOMO into about 160 selected works. Applying agreed criteria and methodologies, these were chosen from more than 300 initial entries. On the basis of an analysis of these works, moreover, an overall detailed view was put forward of what industry represented for the development of the Modern Movement in the Iberian territories. It was found that industry is an area where testing new materials and striving for building efficiency enable new architecture to develop, and representational factors and symbolism are pushed into second place.
The 160 buildings can be accessed in the database.
This Register was published in 2004, in Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan.
