Modern Movement or Modernity?

Malaga and the architecture of the Salmon law

Abstract

The mythification of the architecture of the Modern Movement has led to a singular confusion: forgetting that it was the choice of those who, after analysis and debate -to which the meetings of the first five CIAM congresses were dedicated- focused their reflection on what the existenzminumunshould be and how to define a new proposal for the management of the city. A certain Spanish historiography has only had to identify formal gestures with others existing in some Central European projects to claim the presence of the aforementioned Modern Movement in lost Spanish localities. Thus, decontextualised pieces (a bandstand, the façade of a cinema, a petrol station...) have been glossed over, claiming that such examples were a reflection and continuation of the Central European avant-garde. Those who have acted in this way forget that architectural rationalism in the 1920s and 1930s was basically theoretical, and it was rarely known in Spain because the professional magazines of those years hardly ever reported on it -although there was a profusion of images-. But an analysis of what happened in the CIAMs, of the different opinions and controversies, of how the construction problems derived from the use of new materials were tackled in Europe; of what the programmes of requirements for new housing were; of the transition from single-family dwellings to high-rise blocks; what the land policy should be; what the transport policy should be; what a regional plan should be and what an urban planning plan at regional level should be... hardly anything was said.