The Conservation of Spain's Architectural Heritage: A Balance of Three Crucial Decades, 1929–1958

The conservation of the Spanish patrimony during the years of the Republic (1931–1939) acquired an unprecedented intensity based on the experiences of the 1920s. In this span, the state assumed the mantle of monumental restoration, a young discipline whose intellectual foundations had been consolidated in Spain the first decades of the century. However, from the end of the Spanish Civil War through the two decades of Franco's dictatorship (1939–1958), preservation stepped backward toward the theories of the previous century, which better fit the traditionalist ideology of the regime. The ethos of the Franco era rejected scientific conservation and modern architecture in favor of an aesthetic and stylistic restoration rooted in a traditional and conservative conception of Spanish culture. Conservation architects practiced this mode of preservation either under their own volition or in cautious self-censorship.