13. Pequeños Congresos [Small Conferences]. 1959-1968
Small conferences: 14-16 November 1959 – Madrid / 30 April – 2 May 1960 – Barcelona / 15-17 October 1960 – San Sebastián / 9-11 October 1961 – Córdoba / 19-21 April 1963 – Costa del Sol (Sevilla, Arcos, Jerez and Vejer – Algeciras, Torremolinos and Marbella) / 6-8 December 1963 – Tarragona / 3-5 December 1965 – Segovia y Toledo / 4-7 May 1967 – Tarragona / 7-10 December 1967 – Portugal / 11-13 October 1968 – Vitoria
The Small Conferences, held throughout the Iberian Peninsula over the course of nearly a decade, between 1959 and 1968, brought together a few dozen Spanish architects, more or less annually, to discuss the problems they were facing during a critical period in the history of modern architecture.
In the context of Spanish architecture, the Small Conferences began two decades after the Civil War, and a decade since the gap left by Spanish modern architecture during the post-war period had begun to close. The meetings brought together two generations of architects from Barcelona, Madrid, and San Sebastián. For the Madrid group, the meetings simply offered a format for the construction of a critical discourse. But for the Barcelona group they represented the possibility of a return to the tradition of the Modern Movement, a genealogical line that had been interrupted by the war.
Dozens of Spanish architects, anywhere from 50 to 100, would meet to tour and discuss works of contemporary architecture, and later – especially starting with the fourth meeting – to discuss specific problems, organized by theme, such as affordable housing, the problem of urban planning directed at tourism, the rehabilitation of historic city centres, etc.
At that time, the ideologues behind the meetings began to invite guest speakers, often international personalities, turning the sessions into an active platform for Spanish architectural debate in the 1960s and incorporating some prominent figures from the international scene, such as George Candilis (Tarragona, 1963), Giancarlo de Carlo (Segovia, 1965), Aldo Rossi (Tarragona, 1967), Peter Eisenman and Vittorio Gregotti (Vitoria, 1968).
Nuno Correia: “Los Pequeños Congresos, 1959-1968. Tras los pasos del Team X”, in Josep M. Rovira, Enrique Granell and Carolina B. García (eds.): Destino Barcelona, 1911-1991. Arquitectos, viajes e intercambios, Fundación Arquia, Barcelona, 2018, pp. 207-219.