February of 1933, Spanish Courts: an examination of the building of State Schools

Until 1920, to construct school buildings was a work of the city council. The Department of school Architecture of the Ministry of Public Education reported technically on projects, written by local and provincial architects and presented by the city councils, subsidized by the State Government. This system failed completely and, in view of the slowness of construction and the lack of capacity of the town councils for this task, the Oficina Técnica para la construcción de escuelas por el Estado (Technical Office to construct school buildings in the State) was created. It had an architect in chief, Antonio Flórez Urdapilleta, ten designer architects and head architects in each province. Among them, Bernardo Giner de los Ríos, Joaquín Muro, Jorge Gallegos, Guillermo Diz and Leopoldo Torres Balbás excelled (RODRÍGUEZ MÉNDEZ, unpubl.).

This communication tries to explain the constructive system used by the Oficina Técnica and why this system was the object of a widespread criticism, above all in the framework of the Parliamentary question from February 1933. It will also try to establish to what extent the conclusions of the debate during the consecutive campaigns for building schools, promoted by the Government, were decisive.