From the Ciutat de Repòs to the Ciudades Sindicales de Vacaciones: seaside vacation City for Workers in Marbella: the present of modern leisure heritage

Abstract

The Ciudad Sindical de Vacaciones [Vacation City for Workers] (vcw) constitutes a reference of leisure architecture in Spain during the Franco regime. Starting with a literature review and the process of its cataloguing and protection, the focus lies on the last of these structures ever to be implemented, built in Marbella and the only one still in use. It, then, traces the evolution in Spanish spatial formalization of workers rest, from the urban modern vocation of the gat epac (Group of Spanish Artists and Technicians for Contemporary Architecture, 1930–1936) proposals during the Second Republic, to the Vacation Cities for Workers of the dictatorship, idealised as islands in privileged enclaves. Finally, reflections on transformations underwent in the vcw of Marbella, in the context of its heritage value, will be made.