For the first time, the group of more than 270 buildings for worship built by the high school Nacional de Colonización (INC) between 1939 and 1974 all over Spain has been catalogued, thanks to the research carried out by Beatriz Caballero Zubia in the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra. This work -which has been part of her thesis in the program of doctorate History and Critical Analysis of 20th Century Spanish Architecture- focuses on the study of the architecture for the worship of the villages built by this entity in the Spanish agrarian area.

The INC was born, at the end of the Civil War, "with the aim of providing a home for the new settlers" ( goal ). Those small landowners were called to be the producers in the gear of the new state -which had been raised on an autarkic Economics based on a new agrarian sector- and to constitute a factor core topic of social stabilization", explains the new doctor in Architecture.

Thus, during its almost three decades of existence, the high school built almost 300 villages throughout the country. The researcher has traveled to many of them to learn first-hand about the churches built there: "I have visited 51 villages throughout Spain. Many of them have already been analyzed in other programs of study by regions or through the work of specific architects. In our case, we focus, because of their relevance, on the church buildings. These have been the core topic piece in the urban layout and in the very life in society of these settlements. Also in Navarra, where there is a group of villages created by the INC, especially in the area of the Bardenas Reales canal".

Worship buildings as landscape builders

As detailed by the author of this work, graduated in Architecture from the University of Navarra (2010) and Master in Theory and History of Architecture (2011), "our analysis delved into the chronological study of these churches and their relationship with the architecture that appeared in the magazines and publications of the time". "And, on the other hand," he adds, "we also study this architecture from three approaches: as a landmark -from the landscape scale-, as a symbol -from the urban scale, and as laboratory -from an experimental approach-."

Finally, the new PhD in Architecture emphasizes that her doctoral thesis "emphasizes the value of the churches built by the high school National Colonization as a whole, which now has a catalog that collects the examples studied".