Dos cavernas, un jardín y mil estrellas: el pequeño comercio en España, 1929-1979

Small commercial establishments have the double condition of interior and exterior place, of public and private space and, therefore, also of culture –associated with the habitability of the interior– and by nature –linked to the unprotected exterior–. The result of this coexistence is the culturalization, through artifice, of nature within the commercial space. In the context of modernity, architectural projects emerge where nature also nourishes the imaginary quality of the business by building a new seductive spatiality through the metaphor of “typical elements from nature.” By means of a tour of modern stores in Spain (1929-1979), these being testing and research laboratories for their authors for larger-scale works, the design and execution of different scenographies for sales and commercial service are studied, from the approach through figurative representation of their elements –including direct use of these– to produce the materialisation of a metaphorical “interior landscape,” to the abstraction of the image of nature generating the environment and the envelope of a “landscape of the imagination.” A succinct journey that will take as ist point of departure the cave –the primordial underworld– passing through the garden –the earthly – to end in the sky –the supra world–.