The functional regionalism of Dirección General de Regiones Devastadas. Continuities and dissemination of the Catalan context through the journal Reconstrucción

Abstract

From 1939, with the establishment of Franco’s New State, new nation projects emerged in the cultural and political fields. The Director­ate General of Devastated Regions and Repairs (DGRDR) was particu­larly interested in the architectural and propaganda aspects of the first Franco era, especially rural housing and vernacular tradition. Beyond the vindication of the various local and regional identities, or despite the Re­gime’s common rejection of the Modern Movement as red barbarism, housing plans in devastated urban contexts could not fail to accommo­date, under traditionalist forms, dynamics of rationalist logic. This article aims to explore how the dialogue between modernity, region and tradition developed as part of the technologies of governance of the early Franco regime. Our objective is, by recovering the concept of functional regional­ism, to verify how through the DGRDR there are connections between the vernacular culture of the 1930s and the first architectural debate of the professional elite while assuming questions of a logical-modern order. To this end we will mention some interventions in Catalonia and their visual deployment in official publications (Reconstrucción 1940–1953).