Architecture and Landscape in the Hydrosocial Heritage of Iberian Dam Settlements

Abstract

In the mid-20th century, the construction of dams became central to national development strategies in Spain and Portugal, which often presented them as symbols of modernity, industrial progress and self-sufficiency. These infrastructures are often represented as monuments of technical innovation, arising from prolonged experimentation with architectural and engineering techniques adapted to territorial conditions. At the same time, they embodied complex processes of public policy implementation. This article examines the construction of three dams in remote areas – Los Bermejales, Miranda do Douro and Picote – which required the development of new settlements. It uses architecture, landscape and heritage as analytical lenses through which to produce a diachronic reading of the development and transformation of these spaces throughout the last 70 years. The study draws from primary historical sources – such as architectural projects, official records, and first-person texts -, secondary sources, and the analytical use of photographs and aerial imagery to trace a history of the new settlements from the 1950s to today. In this way, it seeks to examine the role of these dams in the profound transformation of existing landscapes and in the processes of modernisation and social change in peripheral regions of the Iberian Peninsula.