Vigo: Rationalist architecture (1930-50)

In the early twentieth century initiated worldwide cultural movements that will result in a fundamental alteration in the art of building. The great changes that occur in social development, the urban population growth, new techniques and materials, the crystallization of the postulates hygienists. modify the design, aesthetics and function of architecture. The reinforced concrete, the Otis safety elevator, the use of iron and glass, get that "technically feasible" range limits.

Then comes a new generation of architects who apply these new lines looking for simplicity and sobriety versus recharging the historicist and regionalist architecture of the time. It rationalist architecture, fragile-looking, deliberately image linear and symmetrical, with dynamic feeling and almost devoid of ornament, which can lead to us feeling that is easily replaceable by other new architectures.

In Vigo, the reception of these vanguards rationalists occurs with the beginning of the career of the architect Francisco Castro Dams taking constructive rationalism as shown in this historical moment, against regionalist trends that prevailed in the city: "Architecture is utilitarian art, "says Francisco Castro Dams, the lead architect of Vigo.

Other architects Vigo joined this vanguard such as Jenaro de la Fuente and Antonio Alvarez Cominges Molíns.With them should also mention the work of other architects born in Vigo but not working in the city as Pedro Alonso Perez, Emilio Salgado Urtiaga Joaquin Vaquero Palacios, Romualdo de Madariaga and Luis Martinez Feduchi.

Architects representative

- Francisco Castro Dams

- Pedro Alonso Perez

- Romualdo de Madariaga

Representative buildings

- Real Club Nautico - Francisco Castro Dams (1944)

- Building Curbera - Francisco Castro Dams (1939)

- School of Commerce (Business) - Genaro Alvarez de la Fuente (1944)

- Building Sanchón - Francisco Castro Dams (1935)