The Spanish Modernity as the Narration of the Peripheral. Architectural Laboratory and Urban Visions in the Distant Iberian South

Abstract

The evaluation and dissemination of Spanish Modern architecture has been conditioned by its peripheral condition that, similarto all those works external to the central European phenomenon, has marked the definition of its production. In the light of thecultural crisis that the Western World has been experiencing since the Sixties, critics such as Ignasi de Solà-Morales considerthat this interpretation of the architectonic panorama of a dominating centre and a dominated periphery has been overcome,plunging into crisis the distinction centre/periphery formulated by the historian Carlo Ginzburg.This article proposes extending this appreciation to the Spanish modern production previous to the turning point in the perceptionof centralized cultural hegemony to assert the specific nature of ex-centric production as well as the value of its proposalsrelated to the unique framework that produced them. First, Second, Third and Fourth Periphery –Madrid-Barcelona, Andalusia,the coast of Malaga, the city of Malaga– are analyzed by the author as different grades of distancing from the central phenomenonand therefore valuing the modern proposals within the same national territory. The contribution of the author in thefirst and second peripheries has a more bibliographic character, whereas her most innovative contribution is focused on theanalysis of the production in Malaga –third and fourth peripheries– providing unpublished documentation as a result of workdone since 2004 for the Registro de Arquitectura Andaluza Contemporánea, raac.