From the East side of the Iberian Peninsula: Meanings of Design When It Arrived During the 50’s and Early 60’s to Barcelona |

Anna CALVERA

Universitat de Barcelona

Objectives.
thRAD editors invite authors to chat about design and design policies in historical contexts confined by Dictatorship and Resistance. Both the Spanish and Portuguese 20th Centuries share a long dictatorship: from 1923 until 1975 in Spain –with the interval of the Republic years— under Primo de Rivera and Franco; from 1926 until 1974, O Estado Novo, in Portugal under Salazar—. The aim of this paper is to review the history of Design in Spain watching it from the approach proposed by the journal’s editors in order to provide materials for comparison. It will analyse the idea of design that arrived to Barcelona and how has been redefined locally checking the hopeful ideals it brought about in that moment and context. Its aim is to understand how far design adopted almost in Barcelona a character of resistance playing down-up against a certain establishment and political dictatorship. The argument is developed in dialogue with design history as a field of study.