Following the footsteps of a trip through Spain almost 100 years later

Abstract

On the occasion of the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona in 1929, a group of four professionals made a series of trips through Spain, between 1927 and 1928, with the aim of collecting graphic information that would serve them to carry out the project of the commission they had received: The construction of the Pueblo Español of Montjuïc. The venue was meant to be a replica of traditional Spanish architecture that would be at the service of citizens and tourists that Barcelona would receive during the event. In this research work, carried out with students from the Vallès School of Architecture (ETSAV-UPC), a fragment of that trip in which they visited Valderrobres, La Fresneda and Arnés, in the province of Teruel, is reproduced. It was in Valderrobres that they found the model that they would use as a source of inspiration for the construction of the Town Hall of the Pueblo Español, a building that presides over the Plaza. Thanks to this fieldwork based in drawings, measurements and photographs, a comparative analysis will be obtained between the original and the reproduced model, which will allow us to draw the conclusion that what really interested them was the reproduction of façade details rather than the building itself.