Abstract
This thesis is a study of the architectural reality of Barcelona between 1949 and 1964, which adapts its modus operandi of the Milanese architectural imaginary, and is characterized by the desire to substantially recover the history -lost with the dictatorship- the connection of the individual with his innermost self, and consciousness of belonging to the Mediterranean context. The vicissitudes of adaptation carried out by the architects of Barcelona, especially the Group R, and while admiring the Milanese counterparts Rogers, Gardella and Albini, leads to the expression of a genre that is specific to this Mediterranean region and only during the analyzed historic period: Mediterranean Critical Regionalism. The concept of Critical Regionalism is understood by Kenneth Frampton, its theoretician, as an attitude that can never be considered a style as its rationale prevents it, is applicable to any gap that belongs to a decentralized context and by that reason can be considered generic . The Mediterranean Critical Regionalism, however, belonging to a particular physical place , determined and unique, takes its strength beyond the critical category. The importance that for this regionalism has the study of context -historical, geographical, cultural and socio- political- as well as the detection of specific and real needs of human beings who inhabit it -Heidegger’s being-in-the-place – transforms a concept that could be strictly architectural into something interdisciplinary. The study of architectural thought, of the socio-political analysis, of the topography, the links between the architects of both two cities, and the methodological observation of their works, has allowed to the Mediterranean Critical Regionalism to detect a paradigm shift with respect to the architectural genres that were considered or even imposed until then.
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