The New Ministries of Zuazo in 1949

Spain’s current debate on historical memory prompts us to transcribe a speech given on 29 October 2004 in Madrid, at a ceremony organized by the government and the Institute of Architects to remember professionals purged in the wake of the Civil War.

I feel very honored and moved to have the privilege of speaking at an event about the postwar, a period before my time, and about circumstances which figure in my biography only in relation to my expulsion from the Madrid School of Architecture in 1970, a modest academic purge in the final years of Franco’s rule. We have been called to an act of remembrance and redress for architects who were ousted from professional practice in the wake of the Spanish Civil War, and I wish to use the actual wording of the call to reflect on its meaning...[+]