Urban Design under Franco and Salazar, City Production by Iberian Dictatorships in the European Context

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Harald Bodenschatz; Professor Dr. Max Welch Guerra
• Subject Area: Urbanism, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: from 2013 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 241818406

The aim of the research project is to reconstruct the development of the urban design in Spain and Portugal under Antonio de Oliveira Salazar and Francisco Franco as well as to categorize them in the historical context of the European urban design. Central questions are: How is a dictatorial system of urban design established? Which forms of urban design are produced? Which relevance has the urban design for the dictatorships? How is the dictatorial urban design influenced by the international processes? Which part do the national and international experts play? How do awareness and judgment of the built urban evidence of the dictatorships change over time?As in other dictatorships also in Portugal and Spain the single building had to subordinate to the urban design, especially because of the extensive capabilities to control urban development through the state. But urban design is not only understood as designed and built form. Also it always includes the conditions, which led to and are expressed by this form as well as the messages and effects, which the form implies. This understanding of urban design is clarified by the term city production.Six fields of research make the urban design of the dictatorships in Portugal and Spain accessible: (1.) the capital city, (2.) selected large and medium-sized towns, (3.) the rural area, (4.) places for special functions, (5.) colonial towns, 6.) politics and institutions of urban design. The first five fields represent a spatial focus, but also consider the local conditions of the city production. The last field refers to the general political, institutional and professional framework of urban design.The urban design of the Iberian dictatorships changed in the course of their duration. In terms of time the research concentrates on the central phase of the extensive stately controlled urban design, which started in Portugal (1928) as in Spain (1939) with the establishment of the dictatorship and lost its significance in the late 1950s. In this central phase the will of the dictatorship to shape urban design becomes especially apparent.The development of urban design under Salazar and Franco was influenced by other countries: the National Socialist Germany and the fascist Italy but also France were important points of reference. The clarification of the international professional communication is indispensable for the understanding of the national development. First of all this holds for the relationship of the two Iberian countries to one another. But only an embedding of the Iberian dictatoric urban design into an European perspective allows to clarify the specific features of these dictatorships.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants