TYPE MEETS INDUSTRY: XAVIER BUSQUETS FACED WITH THE BELLVITGE RESIDENTIAL ESTATE

Abstract

Of all the housing estates constructed in the peri-urban area of Barcelona in the 1960s, that of Bellvitge in Hospitalet de Llobregat (designed in 1955–1965, constructed in 1964–1976), with its over 9,700 dwellings, 62 hectares of surface area and lengthy gestation, is perhaps one of the most relevant cases. The study, based on original plans, focuses on the contributions made by Xavier Busquets Sindreu between 1960 and 1961 for the design that had been proposed initially by Antonio Perpiñá Sebriá (1955–1960). It examines how this case of mass production of multifamily housing could have been affected by aspects such as the applicable legal framework, the incorporation of private initiative into public development, the rationalisation of the building type, the lack of design ordering strategies, the testing of the first means of industrialisation of construction, and the introduction of foreign architectural references from coordinates as far apart as Team X’s viewpoint, architectural modernity in Brazil and the industrial practice of French prefabrication. The analysis sheds light on the conventional residential culture of Spain in this period and anticipates some of the phenomena that would be consolidated in the decade.