Autoritäre Europäisierung.: Stadtplaner und Westeuropa unter der Franco-Diktatur

Abstract

Recent historiography has struggled to determine the place Spain had under the rule of Franco within post-war European history. Most authors have positioned Spain outside of a new liberal Western European order while highlighting the differences between authoritarianism and democracy. In examining influential groups of urban planners and architects, this essay however argues that the ties between expert groups in Franco’s Spain and Western Europe were much closer than has often been suggested. Not only were the urban planners part of a transnational expert community, they also propagated a Europeanization of Spain that would foster economic development, bring about social peace, and a happier way of life. In their view, Western European modernity essentially meant a rationalization of society and everyday life. Their utopian project of authoritarian Europeanization, however, clashed with capitalist interests of building companies and was in itself highly contradictory, which led to a new debate about urban reform in the 1960s.