Paper short abstract:

This experimental collaboration between an architect-researcher and a documentalist photographer suggests that the homogenous aesthetics of massive urban peripheries in Spain can be read through an original cultural perspective that makes the meaning of heritage less dogmatic and more inclusive.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the aesthetics of those vast residential architectures that, in the context of Francoist developmentalism over the third quarter of the 20th century, were built on the outskirts of Spain's cities to accommodate the population migrating from rural areas. The result of said planning was the most significant urban transformation in the country's history, often embodied in homogenous and mundane buildings that remain unnoticed despite being a ubiquitous typology still today. Informed by a long-term online ethnography that has treated the Facebook group ‘Amigos del Toldo Verde’ as a participatory visual archive reviewed in multiple press releases (https://bit.ly/3HrCGGv) – together with a series of urban walks during which fieldnotes and more than 20,000 pictures were taken by photographer Kike Carbajal (http://bit.ly/toldo-verde) – this research combines textual descriptions with high-quality images to suggest a humble, yet authentic heritage understanding. Here, the term ‘heritage’ is stripped of idealism to become a sort of mirror – occasionally uncomfortable – that disorients the viewer by elevating strangely familiar urban scenes to the status of postcards; thus, this paper leads to a profound reflection on the paradoxes of our imperfect but real cities, oscillating between the advocacy of neighborhood culture and the questioning of the inequalities embedded in its spaces. The present work contributes to the broadening of anthropology by focusing on how experimental collaborations (Estalella and Sánchez-Criado 2018) are practiced between an architect and a photographer aiming to build a more democratic image of Spain’s heritage through the inclusion of working-class lifestyles.