Nationalism and Rural Modernization. The Spanish Tagus Valley colonization villages in the context of Southern European inner colonization

Between 1945 and 1965, thirty-three new agricultural pueblos de colonización [colonization villages] were built in the Spanish Tagus Valley under the action of the Instituto Nacional de Colonización (INC: 1939-1971). Associated with works of hydraulic infrastructures and soil transformation for an intensive use of irrigated crops, these villages deeply shaped the rural landscape in the scope of an intentional modernization process of the countryside. However, this process also contributes to achieve the agrarian utopia of the authoritarian catholic and conservative policy of Franco’s regime. In addition, the changed status of the settler into a small landowner and the notions imported from more urban context reflected in schemes of rural planning were crucial in order to avoid the exodus towards the city. This paper aims to explore the patterns used in the conception of the pueblos and their relation with national identity building process in the context of similar processes occurred in the Southern Europe. The relation between modernity and traditional references, both in urban shape and architectural design, will be explored, with special attention to the Civic Centre, a mandatory requirement of the pueblo’s programme, functioning as the core of the urban fabric. Its composition and facilities architectonic options will be analyzed, as well as its role in the power rhetoric. The articulation with coeval theoretical debates and external models will be used to understand in which level the Spanish experience contributes to the international architectural culture and the regional processThe presentation of this work was funded by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/EAT/04041/2016 and it is based on the research conducted under the project MODSCAPES - Modernist Reinventions of the Rural Landscape (HERA.15.097). This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 649307