The journalist Andrés Rubio publishes ‘España fea’, a documented work on architectural monstrosities
From Cabo de Gata to Finisterre, Spain is an urban monstrosity. Corruption, the brick industry and voracious speculation have fed the country into a whirlwind that has led to one of the greatest cultural disasters in history. The devastation of the landscape began in the 1950s, when autarchy was succeeded by a runaway development that neither the end of the dictatorship nor the autonomous state could stop.
The book ‘Ugly Spain. The Greatest Failure of Democracy’ (Debate), by journalist and gallery owner Andrés Rubio, reports on the attacks on the aesthetics of a country rich in cultural heritage, but which chooses ugliness. “Architects, who are civil servants by definition, have been marginalized in this process. The maelstrom of promoters, in cahoots with mayors and presidents of autonomous communities and politicians in general, has crushed everything,” says Andrés Rubio.
From the illegal hotel El Algarrobico, in the heart of the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, which the Supreme Court refuses to demolish, to ‘La Pagoda’, designed by Miguel Fisac, overthrown by the pickaxe despite the inscription on the imaginary Madrid, the outrage at the harmony of the landscape is constant.
For the author, the role of Social Democracy and Felipe González was “disappointing”. The passivity of the socialist governments against the rampant speculation in Lanzarote forced the artist César Manrique to seize the megaphone, sometimes assisted by the tenor Alfredo Kraus. “González had the opportunity to create a super-department of Territorial Planning, as liberal politician Joaquín Garrigues Walker defended, and he didn’t.” Fed up with the ruling class, Manrique uttered a lapidary phrase that portrays his distaste for the monstrosities emerging on the island. “What a legacy for future generations with this bunch of donkeys.”
Wanting to see himself in the mirror of French socialism, Felipe González did not copy the care Northern neighbors take over the area, nor did he try to emulate his Coastal Conservatory, a government agency that acquires and expropriates land around the coast. «The Coastal Conservatory was founded by the conservative President Giscard d’Estaing, who called for the fight against the disfigurement of France. When they asked him what he was going to do with the land that had been stolen from speculation, he said: nothing; They were intended for the ecological protection of the landscape. Sarkozy, for his part, launched the Grand Paris project and created ten teams of specialists, later expanded to fifteen, to advise him. “The French conservatives have been sensitive to the deterioration of the landscape, unlike Spain, where they have fostered the dynamics of destruction,” says Rubio.
With the shoreline destroyed and the cranes marking the line of the sky, Aznar arrived and ordered that all land be developed for development, “one of the most erroneous decisions of democracy.” No community was free from the temptation of ladrillazo, not even those ruled by nationalist parties, which presuppose a predilection for the territory and its traditions. During Pujol’s mandates, bulldozers razed the landscape of the Costa Brava and forged the Palau case. In turn, the PNV also refrained from protecting many industrial structures in the Bilbao estuary and buildings in the Ensanche. “Some of them had a level of protection and were demolished with impunity. There has also been a lack of sensitivity and culture”.
Andrés Rubio argues, however, that some individuals, especially mayors, have resisted the Celtiberian ugliness. The author quotes one of the most prominent Narcís Serra and Pasqual Maragall in Barcelona; Xerardo Estévez in Santiago de Compostela, or Enrique Tierno Galván and Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón in Madrid. Special mention deserves the architect and urban planner Oriol Bohigas, a man endowed with “criteria, decision-making and intellectual baggage”.
Rubio sets limits to urban planning misdeeds “through a moral rethinking of architecture and the city”, in conjunction with Bohigas’s intellectual legacy. Or, as architect Itzíar González Virós defends, she argues in favor of stopping new construction for rehabilitation and recycling.
It looks bad to correct the gaffes of garbage towns. The journalist believes that we are dealing with an “irreversible process” that is impossible to reverse due to the jumble of legislation. National regulations overlap with those of the municipalities and autonomous communities, so that the provisions cancel each other. “It could be that Spain is over-constructed and hyper-regulated.” Faced with this intricate regulatory labyrinth, Rubio lacks the word “landscape” in the constitution, an omission that is now costing dearly.
Barcelona has partially escaped the clutter, transforming the city into an oasis within the prevailing mediocrity. “It is only when you travel to Barcelona that you realize that it has been thought through in great detail. This is not the case with Madrid, whose government has refrained from leading the process and limited itself to guiding it.
Ugliness isn’t cheap and beauty isn’t expensive either. Sometimes a single element can spoil the final result. It can be clearly seen in the Palace of Santa María del Naranco (Asturias), a beautiful example of pre-Romanesque art whose perspective is spoiled by the roof of a garage made with industrial tiles. However, none of the many advisers who make up the court of presidents and advisers has noticed that aberration that obscures the picture.
The case of the grace of Jesús Gil is a sad metaphor for the impunity with which politicians and promoters act. But the neglect of architects, intellectuals and the media has also created an uncritical mass, from which only environmental groups stand out. They were among the few to have escaped general neglect.
Ever since the Franco minister José Luis Arrese proclaimed that Spain should become a land of owners and not of proletarians, the construction fever has sealed the economy with a model that prevents the de-ballasting. «Thus it can be said that Spain has been destroyed by the poisoned and anti-cultural heritage of Francoism; the politicians who fooled the middle class by infusing them with the insane desire for the apartment business; the rigorous lawyers and professional lawyers; economists and bankers with little or no sensitivity; the professional architecture colleges that kept their mouths shut (…)”, writes Andrés Rubio.
Interestingly, the author saves Benidorm from disaster. Rubio agrees with Oriol Bohigas that skyscrapers are virtuous «because they occupy little area and do little to spoil the territory. The densely populated city is ecological».
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
