España fea

Why does the 1978 Constitution not include the word "landscape"? Why isn't there a Coastal Conservatory like the French one in Spain? Why in 1967 had more than a thousand beautiful towns been cataloged in Spain and now there are not even a hundred left? Why have democracy and its Autonomous Communities regime been seriously damaging to the landscape and, consequently, have irreparably ruined the collective imagination? Ugly Spain is a brilliant study of the barbarities committed on Spanish heritage from the end of Franco's dictatorship to the present. It unravels with rigor and sensitivity the nonsense carried out from the Mediterranean coasts to those of the north, passing through the "emptied Spain" and the urban disaster of Madrid, and analyzes the causes that have led us to this unprecedented cultural catastrophe. It reveals the strategy concocted by ignorant and corrupt politicians and promoters, with the complicit silence of a demobilized union, that of architecture, plus the indifference and ignorance of the intellectual world and the media. Despite everything, the book also analyzes in detail some examples of work well done, linking with the best European tradition, in cities such as Barcelona or Santiago de Compostela, or in towns such as Albarracín or Vejer de la Frontera. Based on numerous interviews, and joining the journalistic chronicle, the travel book and the political essay, Andrés Rubio presents a text of great originality and full of nuances. Also analyzing the cases of France, Germany and Italy, he conveys a pro-European and progressive message of defense of the best qualities of the public sphere, advocating the planning of the territory as an indispensable weapon to affirm democracy.