Stone, granite and concrete: three images of the urban under Franco

This article proposes three images of the urban for examining the reconstruction, architecture and planning discourses in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. The city of stone, the city of granite and the city of concrete reveal the Falangists' preference for certain construction materials because of their symbolic and material association with the perceived historical sources of the New Spain the Roman and Hapsburg Empires and the ideal of a technically functional nation. In order to illustrate these images, this article succinctly reviews the post-war transformations of three selected sites: the Avinguda de la Catedral in Barcelona, the Montaa del Prncipe Po in Madrid and the bridges of Bilbao, together with the discourses that accompanied these developments.