Room 208.02

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, tough living conditions in rural areas and low wages would result in a sixty-percent population increase in the capital cities of Spain’s provinces in little under forty years. The mass arrival of workers from country to city created a serious housing deficit that led to the escalation of shacks and shanties, thereby shaping the image of an insalubrious city that perpetuated the social conflict of the working class. No major city would be exempt from this problem, although it would be more acute in developed industrial centres such as Barcelona, Madrid and Bilbao.      

Scarcity and necessity were laid bare in the homes of that time, prompting the appearance of different architecture-based solutions: communal housing, ambitious council housing programmes, cooperatives, and industrial community housing, primarily aimed at guaranteeing minimum living conditions and sanitation for the working class.