Article - Journal of Architecture and Engineering

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The human scale of the city.
New residential neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Madrid in the1950s.
Manuel Cabeza González.
Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Design
University Jaume I
Castellón de la Plana, Spain
manuelcglez@gmail.com
Abstract— During the 1950s large amount of new residential
neighbourhoods were built in the Spanish cities which redefined
their city limits. This was intended to solve the serious problem of
accommodation which, especially in Madrid, had led to the
massive arrived of emigrants from rural areas and, consequently
the generation of large agglomerations of shacks on the outskirts
of main cities. In addition to large official neighbourhoods, a lot
of groupings of subsidized housing were built on the outskirts of
the cities managed by private entities which collaborated with the
State in the construction of social housing. These interventions
were carried out by young generations of architects who saw the
urgency with which should be lifted these residential
neighbourhoods and the economic shortages of the moment, as
an opportunity to put into practice the rationalist principles
already used in the cities of Europe in the inter-war period.
However, the crisis which in those years was crossed the
rationalist approaches leads to these architects to seek the
answers to aspects of the human being such as a place and its
memory in organic architecture from northern Europe and
popular architecture. Consequently, we can found in the
solutions provided so a right economic answer as a true human
habitat thanks to the adequacy of the urban dimensions to the
scale of human being and the close dialogue between architecture
and place, which translates into pleasant spaces where we can
develop as individuals in society. In this way, the constraints of
the site are assumed as part of the project, creating sets in which
the architecture keeps a relationship of respect with nature
environment, adapting to the unique topography of the land, and
getting the memory of the place remains present in the character
of the generated spaces. This respect for the place leads architecs
often to break in a systematic way the rational linearity of the
block of flats, looking for not only facilitate its implementation in
the field, but get to delimit outer space with a more human scale.
The analysis of these interventions is intended to highlight the
wisdom of its proposals to build a city proper to the human scale,
at the time to propose a reflection about the evolution of the
urban habitat for more than half a century.
Keywords- residential neighborhoods, Rationalism, Habitat.
I.
INTRODUCTION
At the beginning of the 1950s, the Spanish cities were
overwhelmed by the massive influx of inhabitants who came
from the rural areas and built large agglomerations of shacks
on the outskirts of main cities. This situation forced the official
bodies to take part urgently in order to solve the serious
hygiene and social problems that caused this uncontrolled
growing in the periphery of urban areas.
In this way, during the 1950s, the recently-created National
Housing Institute was responsible to manage the construction
of new sets of houses on the outskirts of cities where this large
number of rural immigrants could be accommodated
The urgency and small economy of these interventions,
allowed the architects of these proposals to put the rationalist
principles into practice, more appropriate to solve these needs
than the historical architecture from the ideals of the new
regime. So we can see how these provisional housing
developments were heavily influenced by modern criteria that
were presented in Europe in those years [1].
II.
EASE OF USE HOUSING PROBLEM IN MADRID IN THE
1950S
A. Maintaining the Integrity of the Specifications
An analysis of this kind of interventions witch were carried
out in Madrid, shows that their architects used the new
languages not only as a formal application, but that in their
proposals we can see the same interest for a more human
architecture that run through Europe in those years than the city
models offered by. It was due to excessive schematic and
formal rigidity of the Central European avant-gardes models
from the interwar period as, despite the appropriateness of their
design from the point of view of hygienic and functional, these
kind of models neglecting other aspects such as memory and its
place witch are closest to the man.
In this sense, we find examples of the different modern
trends such as Nordic organicism which José Antonio Corrales
and Ramón Vázquez Molezún used to resolve in 1960 the
planned community of Almendrales, neo-plasticism that Luis
Cubillo used in the planned community of Canillas in 1954 and
even neo-realism with which Vázquez de Castro and Onzoño
Iñiguez resolved the planned community of Caño Roto in 1956.
[2]
The interventions made by Fco. Javier Sáenz de Oiza and
Alejandro de la Sota for the population relocation housing
Fuencarral A and B respectively, were the first two settlements
of this type carried out, so the construction of the next
interventions depended largely of the result they achieved.
Furthermore, these two proposals synthesize on an exemplary
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way this stage of transition in the Spanish architecture scene
because the strict rationalism that Fco. Javier Sáenz de Oiza
projected Fuencarral A, is faced with the rural lyricism that
Alejandro de la Sota develops the Fuencarral B neighbour
III. POPULAR ARCHITECTURE AND RATIONALIST
ARCHITECTURE. THE POPULATION RELOCATION HOUSING IN
FUENCARRAL.
With the construction of the population relocation housing,
the Commissioner of urban development in Madrid carried out
the Plan of growth of this city. These constructions were raised
as satellite towns on the periphery of the city and with the only
objective of hosting the new population came to the capital
from the rural areas moved in search of work
In the specific case of Fuencarral, the population relocation
housing are on the northeast of the city limits, within walking
distance to Fuencarral village in Madrid
Both proposals are influenced by the first modern
experiments on residential units were carried out in Europe
during the interwar years which followed the organic model of
the garden city in its early years. However each have been
developed with different qualifications.
Thanks to family homes it was possible to introduce
popular aesthetic witch remind us life in the village of the
interior, as their author himself recognizes:
"A group of houses with pens where domestic animals are
kept has certain characteristics that, led honestly to the project,
give a village image”.
"Fuencarral B was inspired in this image, trying to debug
it...” [3]
In this way, while Alejandro de la Sota’s proposal is closer
to the organic model carried out by Ernst May in residential
developments as the Sieldungen of Praunheim and Romerstand
in Frankfurt in 1926 and 1927, Fco. Javier Sáenz de Oiza’s
proposal is closer to the rationalistic criteria with which Pieter
Oud developed in 1924 and 1925 the Hoek van Holland and
Kiefhoek housing, so housing were only at position south or
east to ensure op1timum lighting of the main rooms.
This difference in criteria is justified by observing the
different nature between the previous works in which both
architects had developed residential units.
In the case of Alejandro de la Sota, his experience is refered
to the village for the National Institute of Colonization he
continued developing in that time, as the proposals for
Valuengo village or Esquivel complementary projects. From
this works he took the popular and picturesque character, not
only to plan Fuencarral B, but the types of houses too that
provide a rural image to the whole. This means of working
shows a special attention to users who must be accommodated
in these constructions. [4]
Figure 1. Planning of population relocation housing Fuencarral A. Fco.
Javier Sáenz de Oiza. 1955
In the case of Fuencarral A, Fco. Javier Sáenz de Oiza
developed the theories of Rationalism of the last CIAM of prewar, so he used linear blocks whose disposition had been
defined by orientation and sunlight criteria.
Figure 3. View of the family homes of Fuencarral B. A. de la Sota. 1955
Figure 2. Planning of population relocation housing Fuencarral B. Alejandro
de la Sota. 1955
On the other hand, the Alejandro de la Sota’s proposal for
Fuencarral B shows a purge of the popular towards a more
rationalist architecture, which manages to remove the
picturesque character of this kind of architecture.
For his part, Fco. Javier Sáenz de Oiza who in these dates
had already developed several proposals of neighbourhood
units in the outskirts of Madrid as one of the architects of the
charity Association Hogar del Empleado, shows a deep
knowledge of what Europe was doing on social housing. His
proposal was developed from the strict rationalism, with an
exhaustive study of the construction process in order to
minimize production costs [5].
One consequence of this difference is the resulting image
from the two population relocation housing. In Fuencarral B,
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thanks to the uniform coating that surrounds the housing, they
are appreciated as white and simple volumes that remind us the
rural origin of their user. Instead, housing of Fuencarral B was
built with brick and bare holes that seem to want to make it
clear the humble nature of its buildings.
IV.
THE NORDIC INFLUENCE. THE NEIGBORHOOD UNITS OF
HOGAR DEL EMPLEADO.
In addition to the population relocation housing managed
directly by government agencies, were also built several groups
of protected housing in the periphery of the cities witch were
managed by private entities that collaborated with the State in
the construction of social housing.
For this goal, at the beginning of the 1950s, several Spanish
architects traveled throughout Europe to study on first-hand the
criteria to create livable spaces closer to the human scale than
those the Rationalist models. This is the case of José Luis
Romany Aranda and Adam Milczynski who visited
Scandinavia in 1954 to search examples of social housing that
will serve them as reference for the development of their
proposals as architects of Hogar del Empleado.
Figure 4. View of the family homes of Fuencarral A. Fco. J. Sáenz de Oiza.
1955
In both cases the intentions of sincerity of the architects
determine the result, but while Fco. Sáenz de Oiza emphasises
the humble nature of the buildings, characterized by the honest
use of materials - the brick is not hidden behind any coating -,
for Alejandro de la Sota the most important is identify housing
with its user - rural origin -, so besides demonstrating his
interest to provide decent housing to the immigrant, also
contributes to their welfare, adapting the solution to the
lifestyle of their occupants.
The variety of the types raised by Alejandro de la Sota in
Fuencarral B, due to the importance that it has not only the
rural origin of users, but the diversity of their origins too, both
in family homes and residential units, proposing two types for
family homes and another four different types for the linear
blocks.
In that time, European architecture looked at Nordic
countries, whose architecture had managed to evolve without
discarding tradition and it was crucial the extreme hardness of
its climate, providing examples that integration with the
environment is as important as care by interior environments.
The result was an architecture witch kept harmonious
relationship with nature.
Countries such as England and Italy see it as the logical
alternative to the evolution of modernity and its critics are
quick to coining the term New Empiricism [6] as the new trend
that was referenced in Scandinavian architecture, with special
attention to the psychological and social aspects of human
being.
So the organicism of Alvar Aalto replaced the schematic
rationalism on the European scene. In his architecture,
rationalism is humanized by the freedom with which relaxes
the rigidity of walls and ceilings and also the pattern of human
settlements where housing, work and nature are combined in a
perfect balance.
The resulted image are augmented by this diversity of
typologies and in continuity with the criteria of the residential
units of beginning of the twenty century, contributes to the
identification of each of the buildings as well as it is facilitated
the adaptation to the new environment to the large number of
immigrants.
On the other hand, Fco. Sáenz de Oiza’s proposal is closer
to the economic reality of his time, link with the modern
tradition whose main objective is to optimize resources, so he
developed dwellings in Fuencarral A only with one type of
family homes and another one for linear block, hoping to get
diversity thanks to the different location of the buildings within
the planning.
In both cases is evident a social commitment that two
authors recognize inherent to architect, as well as a different
way to practice it that has its precedent in the model followed
by each of them.
Figure 5. Residencial Unit for a factory of cellulose. Sunila. Finland. Alvar
Aalto. 1935
Its residential proposals, such as the one made in 1935 for a
factory of cellulose in Sunila or two years later another one in
Kauttua, solve with ease the difficult relationship between the
privacy of the individual and community life through a close
contact with nature that takes him to adapt buildings into the
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topography of the land, spreading through the surface to
emphasize the orography of the place and to take advantage
from the natural slopes for the benefit of the architecture [7].
We can see clearly the influence of the trip that José Luis
Romany Aranda and Adam Milczynski made to Scandinavia in
the residential units witch projected for Hogar del Empleado in
different locations of Madrid outskirts in the 1950s and the
early 1960s.
In this way, respect for the place led them to break the
rational linearity of the block of flats, looking for not only
facilitate its implementation on the ground, but get delimit
outer space with a scale closer to human being.
Figure 6. Residencial Unit Puerta del Ángel. Avenida Portugal. J. L.
Romany, Fco. J. Sáenz de Oiza, A. Milczynski , M. Sierra. 1954-57
In these residential units, the repetition of certain constants
determines the aesthetics of an architecture that is built
according to the economic needs of the moment, as we can see
in the materials they used: brick in walls, wood for carpentry
and granite for exterior. With these materials not only offered a
right economic answer, but also got to establish a dialogue with
the environment that it had hardly been with more ostentatious
materials. In fact it can be said that this solution was achieved
thanks to think architecture from the place, as the lighting,
ventilation, views and nature are the elements with which they
projected the human habitat.
Figure 8. Residencial Unit Loyola. Carabanchel. J. L. Romany, Fco. J.Sáenz
de Oiza, E. Mangada, C. Ferrán. 1960-1965
These characteristics defined the residential unit Virgen de
Lourdes in Batan, Madrid, designed in 1955 and whose
construction is expanded up to mid-1960s. It is located in the
northeast of the capital, near the Casa de Campo, a big green
area of this city [8].
In the adopted solution, the constraints of the site are
assumed as part of the project to design a planning where
architecture keeps a relationship of respect towards nature that
surrounds it, adapting to the unique topography of the land and
getting that the memory of the place keeps in the character of
the generated spaces.
To achieve this, architects renounced the rationality of
orthogonal frames, and situated the housing on all the surface
of the solar in independent buildings, which are grouped in
different ways with the aim of limiting the scale of outer spaces
in line at its located within the planning.
Figure 7. Residencial Unit Erillas. Puente de Vallecas. J. L. Romany, Fco. J.
Sáenz de Oiza, A. Milczynski , M. Sierra a. 1955-57
They also prevent the monotony which the repetition of a
same type of buildings causes, including towers of 12 floors
next to the linear blocks of five floors. The length of these
blocks depends both by topographic criteria as compositional,
which responds to the consideration of the city as a plastic fact
in which the habitability criteria structure the overall
composition.
In this sense, the right sunlight and ventilation of each of
the dwellings condition the orientation and shape of the
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buildings which are arranged as a succession of broken lines in
the East-West direction for the case of blocks, and in Southeast
direction for fragmented squares of the towers.
At the same time in elevation, the verticality of the towers,
located in the highest side, serves as background to the linear
blocks that are offset its horizontality. This provision offers a
characteristic image that allows to identify the residential unit
within its urban environment.
Figure 10. View of Mall of the Residencial Unit Ntra. Sra. de Lourdes. Batan.
Madrid. J. L. Romany Aranda, Fco. J. Sáenz de Oiza, A. Milczynski , M.
Sierra. 1955-63
An example of this is shown by Eduardo Mangada who
projected the Mall. He knew the importance of the roof in this
building as its small height became an element of
contemplation for inhabitants of the houses that surround it.
This led him to design it with roof gardens, minimise the visual
effect that produces. [9].
Figure 9. Views of Residencial Unit Ntra. Sra. de Lourdes. Batan. Madrid. J.
L. Romany, Fco. J. Sáenz de Oiza, A. Milczynski , M. Sierra. 1955-63
The composition of the planning is completed with empty
places in the natural valley located in middle of the lot where
the have been situated buildings that provide service to
urbanization witch were developed especially in low buildings
within generous horizontal platforms in the open air to break
the continuity of the residential buildings. Thus, the centre of
the composition was defined as core of civic activities in the
residential unit, which were developed within green areas to
help and enrich the use of these facilities.
All these buildings, with the exception of the Church, were
also designed by the architects of Hogar del Empleado who
made them with the same care to keep the human character of
the created spaces, thanks to its relationship with the natural
environment that surrounds them.
From the core of the planning, the linear blocks compresses
the outer space, reducing their dimensions to a scale more
domestic which serve as transition between the amplitude of
the public centre and the intimacy of homes, keeping the
fluidity of views toward the centre of the planning.
Figure 11. Planning of Residencial Unit Ntra. Sra. de Lourdes. Batan. Madrid.
J. L. Romany, Fco. J. Sáenz de Oiza, A. Milczynski , M. Sierra. 1955-63
The gradation from public spaces to the privacy of the
home is accented with vertical communication cores that
remain open to the green spaces of the streets near to the
access, breaking eye contact only when you walk through the
door of the home. Once inside, we find that all the rooms are
opened to the outside. In addiction, the exterior spaces closer to
the housing were designed to accommodate various community
activities.
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the popular architecture in search of an approach with the
customs of a specific collective. So the architect creates
scenarios with which future users are familiar which facilitates
the acceptance of the new environment.
The second option is based on the organic concepts,
introducing nature as an integral part of the urban environment.
At the same time, it is established a gradual zoning of activities
from the public to the private, so that the public and crowded
are further from the intimacy of the houses. In addiction, the
dimensions of all these spaces are determined by the activity
which has developed in them, relying on the topography of the
land to narrow the different places with an appropriate scale
and pleasant.
Figure 12. View of Residencial Unit Ntra. Sra. de Lourdes. Batan. Madrid. J.
L. Romany, Fco. J. Sáenz de Oiza, A. Milczynski , M. Sierra. 1955-63
The streets become an extension of dwellings which, as it
happens with blocks, are broken, taking advantage of the
natural slopes of the land, to give rise to different horizontal
platforms. Long green spaces are so transformed into a
rhythmic succession of sites linked with homes.
V.
CONCLUSIONS
From the analyzed examples we can draw various
conclusions. First and most immediate we can say is that the
quality of the architecture does not depend on the cost of its
construction. Rather, in view of the results, could be the inverse
relationship, that is, best architecture is obtained with smaller
budgets. It is due the architects haven’t another resources than
the project, so they only can use the relations of architecture
with the man to make their architecture.
In this sense, the analyzed examples show two ways to
serve and strengthen this relationship. The first one reminds us
However, despite the fact that in both cases it meets the
objective of humanising the architecture, the first case, aimed
at a very specific group, remains universality to the solution.
This is corroborated by its demolition made a few years ago,
due to their inadequate integration into the development of the
city. This has not happened with the proposals of Hogar del
Empleado that, although with some modifications, keep
running at present.
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