Spain is beautiful, a country with excellent natural and heritage wealth. But, certainly, its cities and towns have been getting ugly since the Francoism to the present day. Without the arrival of democracy correcting the course. On the contrary, precipitating it. Today our urbanization and architecture is remarkably bland, insolent or even insulting. Many of us perceive it that way, but Andrés Rubio has written it with rigor and forcefulness in his book ‘España fea’ (Debate), with an ugly cover –we suppose on purpose–, with the aberrant Hotel Algarrobico still challenging. He considers that the urban rampage has been the greatest failure of democracy. But there has never been a debate in Congress about such evidence.
About beauty or ugliness, that is to say about tastes, it is said that there is nothing written. to which the architect Federico Correa he added haughtily: “That is because you have read little & rdquor ;. Yes there is taste. There are horrifying and precious constructions. For scholars and for people in general. And what if an apartment building is ugly? As long as it works… Apparently little thing, but it is that ugliness is usually related to greed, inexperience and even crime. It is enough to analyze how the Spanish coast is and other urban development balls. Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio he warned about it in an epic column, published in ‘El País’ in 1994, entitled ‘Ugliness’: “Do not underestimate the power of ugliness, because it is the door to stupidity and this is the door to evil.” ; The architect Luis Feduchi heads the prologue of this book with a quote from Theodor Adorno: “The impression of ugliness arises from a principle of violence, of destruction”, in the same non-aesthetic direction. And that was the thesis of the missed Oriol Bohigas, when he gave the conference ‘Uglier than the Escorial’, referring to the impossible project of the Reina Sofía Art Center in Madrid in a former hospital. He did not attend to aesthetic whims, but deeply ethical ones, regarding the quality that the equipment must have. That the Catalans –Levantines, Unamuno dixit– loses the aesthetics, It is as true as we find ethics in everything material.
The ugliness of Spain has been lack of sensitivity and greed. Read corruption. The councils have allowed it, preferably from the right, but from the PSOE as well. And the disaster has been in each and every one of the autonomous communities, which have full powers in the matter. The Catalan coast is sad. A little less than the Valencian, yes. On the other hand, let us not forget that every project must necessarily bear the signature of an architect. Every time you see a mess, a colleague – or yourself – has helped erect it. Blaming speculative promoters is the easy exculpatory refrain. Without a municipal license and without a project visa, they cannot make the landscape ugly, no matter how hard they try. And certainly they are committed. Therefore, political parties and architects are the main responsible for the mess. And also accomplices for not denouncing it.
The waning beauty of our towns and cities has paralleled the disregard of the administration for its territory. With Aznar, all of Spain became an immense free preserve to build, to the cry of the last fool. Haunted chalets or towering skyscrapers.
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That our territory is now uglier than that of France, Italy or Germany is a joke. But what is surprising is that he is a travel journalist, promoter of madis mad art gallery who embarrasses us by describing it rigorously and denouncing that we have not done anything about it. His tone is not complaining and he also dares to give examples of good practices: the period of Bohigas in Barcelona, of his disciple Xerardo Estevez in Santiago or the current ‘superillas’ in Barcelona. That gives hope and brightness to the study, which, if not, would have been to cry. And as the teacher says Oscar Tusquets, “You learn nothing from the ugly.” Better to enjoy good beautiful practices.
Rubio asks in his book that each reader do what he can about it, according to his ability to maneuver. It should be required reading for politicians, municipal architects and boards of architects’ associations.