What has become of Franco's colonization towns that some want to reoccupy

Being part of

has made it difficult to achieve national and international recognition, but the truth is that the creation of more than 300 towns in Spain during the dictatorship to promote agriculture was, in some aspects, a success.

It is also true that this colonization project was already contemplated from the Enlightenment to the agrarian reforms of the Second Republic, although it was finally carried out during one of the greatest periods of scarcity and autarky in the country.

The photobook

  (Ed. Turner, 2020), by the photographers and architects Ana Amado (Ferrol, 45 years old) and Andrés Patiño (A Coruña, 54 years old), reviews the life of these peoples and delves into their urban approach and in its innovative housing designs.

As the authors point out, the housing model of these settlements has gained another reading with the pandemic.

Perimeter street in Vegaviana, the town designed by the architect José Luis Fernández del Amo in Cáceres.

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

Although they were born under the same program supervised by the National Colonization Institute (INC) of the Franco regime, the colonization towns, created around the main hydrographic basins of the country, were not conceived homogeneously and have not evolved in the same way.

At present, there are examples such as

, located 14 kilometers from Seville and which serves as the sleeping area of ​​the Andalusian capital;

other towns have become vacation refuges, such as

(Ciudad Real), where most of their homes are second homes;

and others have suffered the effects of rural depopulation in recent decades, such as

(Córdoba).

Habitar el agua has been selected for the PhotoEspaña 2020 Best Book of the Year award.

Witness to this are the authors of this photobook - recently

- who traveled around thirty of these towns for three years.

They did so moved by the experimental architecture that is still observed in them, developed by architects who later became relevant figures such as Alejandro de la Sota, José Luis Fernández del Amo, José Antonio Corrales, Antonio Fernández Alba or Fernando de Terán.

The latter two share, along with other authors, their impressions of the INC project in

.

The photobook also shows the development of

, a similar plan carried out in Mussolini's Italy in the 1930s.

"The leaders of the INC intelligently surrounded themselves with talent and in this way a model of houses and other buildings was projected that drank directly from the postulates of European rationalism, taking into account their functionality", explains Patiño.

Thus was born a type of structure designed for the settlers and their agrarian life.

"All the colonies are articulated around a square where the town hall, the church, the doctor, the school were located ... Then they expanded towards the housing estate and, on the outskirts, were the cultivation plots", explains Amado .

"The distances that farmers had to travel were taken into account, and streets were even designed only for cars and tractors," he adds.

Panoramic view of Setefilla (Seville).

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

Landscape cultivated next to Cascón de la Nava (Palencia).

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

What we can take advantage of the colonies in the postcovid era

The architect and photographer highlights the review of the colonization program after the effects of the pandemic and confinement.

These settlements present characteristics that are precisely being claimed today.

“The design of these homes was based on the flexibility of their rooms and their spaciousness (they were usually for large families);

local materials were used for its construction, a good example of sustainable architecture that is the focus of many of the debates today, ”adds Amado.

Two houses, one modified (left) and another in its original condition (right) in the San Isidro neighborhood, in Alicante.

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

These houses served as production cells, in them everything was done: you lived and worked.

"Which is what we want now that teleworking is being promoted," says the architect, who believes that, in cases where the state of these towns is semi-abandoned, "they should intervene to be inhabited again."

Canalization in Terra Chá (Lugo).

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

Fountain, oaks and church of Vegaviana.

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

More than 55,000 families were mobilized to these villages from the 1940s to the 1970s.

In

, Amado and Patiño also take the pulse of the settlers, rooted in these lands after more than half a century.

“This kind of life, close and in connection with nature, can be a claim for many people who want to flee from the individuality of cities.

Perhaps we are at the dawn of a return to the countryside, provided that infrastructures and services are improved ”, says the photographer.

A settler next to a model from Esquivel (Seville).

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

Colona in Miralrío, in the province of Jaén.

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

In addition to the experimental architecture, the authors of the photobook vindicate contemporary art that can be seen in an unusual way in many of their buildings, such as the church of Villalba de Calatrava (1955), by José Luis Fernández del Amo, and inside the Via Crucis by the sculptor Pablo Serrano;

or the bell tower of Llanos del Sotillo, in Jaén, by José Antonio Corrales.

"Although without a doubt the flagship of the INC was Vegaviana (Cáceres) as a whole, which even came to be recognized by the former Soviet Union in a 1958 congress of architects," says Patiño.

Contemporary art can be seen in an unusual way in many of the constructions in these colonies.

In the image, the Via Crucis of the sculptor Pablo Serrano in the church of Villalba de Calatrava (1955), in Ciudad Real, by José Luis Fernández del Amo.

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño

Precisely some of the colonization towns of Extremadura are the most active in claiming this architectural heritage of Spain, promoting tourist visits.

"This can also be a way to decentralize tourism from the cities, to create more jobs and attract more people to these towns, whose housing models have proven to be very effective," concludes Amado.

Crossroads in Algallarín (Córdoba).

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Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño