The unpublished archive of architect Matías Fernández-Fígares: reconstructing Granada in the 1920’s

Abstract

The architect Matías Fernández-Fígares carried out his prolific professional career in Granada (Spain) during one of the most fascinating periods in the urban and architectural development of this city, being the author of several iconic buildings in Granada from the 1920s and 1930s. In 2004, part of his personal archive was donated to the School of Architecture of Granada. The documentation contained therein, comprising over one hundred and forty projects executed between 1914 and 1935, began to be digitized and thoroughly analysed many years later, in 2024, thanks to the involvement of several researchers as an initial outcome of this research, the present article focuses on the rental housing projects developed by this architect, a typology of European origin that was introduced in Granada at the end of the 19th century. Thirty-one files corresponding to this typology have been identified, encompassing both renovations and new construction projects. Unpublished plans and drawings of the original proposals of some buildings that are still standing have been discovered, revealing that they were not built as originally conceived.
The analysed documentation also provides interesting insights into the material supports, graphic language, and working methods used by Matías Fernández-Fígares. Furthermore, it sheds light on the remarkable evolution of his architectural style in just fifteen years, moving from historicism to regionalism and culminating in rationalism.
Finally, the projects contained in this personal archive also offer a gaze into Granada society at the beginning of the 20th century, dominated by a flourishing bourgeois elite that sought large-scale transformations of the city’s historical and architectural heritage.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.34.2025.21