Local history

The physiognomy of the city of Vigo has changed radically in the last 100 years, basically due to the commercial and industrial impulse during different periods, which has caused positive population flows that have made it the largest city in Galicia.

I started my research trying to know the origins of the controversial Gran Vía, a large urban project that was born at the beginning of the 20th century by the engineer Ramiro Pascual and that has fulfilled the objective of offering a way of expansion of the historic urban center, at the same time which has served as the backbone of the different areas of a city in constant growth. I got some old photos that show the first years of the construction of this avenue.

This question immediately led me to try to identify the historical moments related to the growth of the city, and to realize that between the late 60’s and 70’s a phenomenon known as expansionism occurred, and that caused Vigo to have the highest percentage growth. great of all Spain – above cities like Madrid or Barcelona. The installation of the Citroen factory in Vigo in 1958 served to boost the industry of the city and quickly became a magnet for the population of the area and other areas of Galicia and Spain.

This caused a rapid and poorly planned growth of some peripheral areas of the city, where even today you can see the effects, as for example, on a street called Travesía de Vigo, with a high density of population, dozens of tall buildings  without any separation between them built along the street, the well-known  Fenosa building (600 homes)  or the existence in the vicinity of buildings more typical of rural areas than urban ones are part of the inheritance that the “desarrollismo” left in Vigo.

For this first approach I gathered information from newspapers, old photographs located on the Internet (it would be interesting to see what funds the Pacheco Foundation File has) and I have even verified the existence of a photographic project by Carme Nogueira that explores these singularities of the urban landscape in the Travesia.

The project seems interesting to me and I believe that an approach to the Travesia street could be made from these areas that are located in the back of this wall of buildings, in a way that juxtaposes the rural and the urban.