La planificación en la construcción de los poblados del Instituto Nacional de Colonización

Abstract

The Instituto Nacional de Colonización was the executive branch of one of the most important projects within the social and economic philosophy of the Franco years. The building of more than two hundred new settlements within an irrigation plan covering a great number of hectares opened up new avenues for experimentation in the field of urbanism and architecture. In this study, the focus will be on the evolution of various aspects of construction, with an emphasis on the planning stages during the development of housing projects, and in the actual construction of new settlements. We shall see how there was an obvious lack of technical resources and knowledge but equally how the realities of Francós Spain produced new resources. This study is mainly based on the follow up reports on construction of the settlements of Setefilla (Fernando de Terán, 1965) and El Priorato (Antonio Fernández Alba, 1964), two of the Institute's main projects, that were produced by two architects that took experimentation in the urbanism field to its highest limits. It will be shown how a zonal planning was carried out and also how there was desertion and low occupancy rate in the settlements, giving rise to a policy of reconstruction which dramatically changed the original structure of some of the settlements.