Madrid,
There were 127 pavilions, provincial and international, of which, today, approximately half remain. Between 1950 and 1975, a dozen editions (biannual or triannual) of the so-called Country Fairs were held in the Casa de Campo in Madrid, which had their starting point in livestock competitions and whose purpose was to promote the recovery of agriculture and livestock in post-war times, bring the countryside to the city and disseminate its products and folklore among those who were beginning to know only the habits of the urban world.
The event was held in spring, it will be familiar to those who saw the NODE and is located at the origin of the current site of the Casa de Campo, on the banks of the Manzanares; The corresponding metro stop and the infrastructure around this complex were not part of that project, but were carried out in parallel.
The architect José de Coca dedicated his doctoral thesis to these architectures and that study has been the starting point (and De Coca the curator) of the exhibition that the ICO Museum presented today: “Las Ferias del Campo. Landscapes and modern architectures in the Casa de Campo.” In addition to examining the architectural approaches of the complex, this exhibition reviews the most significant pavilions for their modernity, carried out by leading architects of that time, often taking into account regional differences and ends by giving an account of the rehabilitations that some of the preserved buildings have undergone and the degrees of protection and uses that are currently applied to them.
A couple of years before the celebration of the first Field Fair, in 1948, who was a delegate in the Colonization Union Work, Diego Aparicio López, glimpsed the possibilities offered by the then Livestock Fair grounds and meetings began with the architects Francisco de Asís Cabrero and Jaime Ruiz. His first sketches were conditioned by the pre-existing buildings, urgency, the desire to economize… and also by respect for the surrounding landscape and views of the city.
As an entrance, a door with a concrete arch and curved brick walls was designed; To the left was the pavilion of the Ministry of Agriculture, headed by Carlos Arniches, and to the right, the general pavilion, in turn with a concrete overhang.
After passing through an avenue, visitors entered a circular plaza with avant-garde arches that housed murals inspired by Matisse and Arp. The layout of the new is superimposed on the old – the work of Juan Moya and Idígoras, with regionalist roots – taking the shape of a cross, as in the Roman forums, and at the ends of the complex were the elements considered symbolic: plaza to the east and tower to the west, as indicated in Cabrero’s collected plans.
His and Ruiz’s projects would be marked by the use of exposed brick, by white as the dominant tone and by subtle references to the metaphysical painting of De Chirico, whom Cabrero met in Italy.
The most ambitious area is that circular plaza, as we said, decorated with murals that were due to Antonio Lago, Carlos Pascual de Lara and Antonio Rodríguez Valdivieso. Their originals are not preserved, but from the reproductions we know that they supported post-war abstraction. The machinery pavilion also stood out for its partitioned vaults and its absence of iron; Drawings by Alejandro de la Sota guide us in the exhibition along that route: these areas are not preserved.
The restaurant tower, to the west, offered views of both the mountains and Madrid and was much admired: it responded to the scheme of a classic Roman tower, with the novel addition of the concrete cantilever that tops it. On the sides, Cabrero introduced granite masonry with windows. And we must also mention the amphitheater, a cone open to the landscape that referred to Greek models and had capacity for four hundred people.
One of the construction resources designed to reduce the use of expensive steel and concrete were the shallow vaults on brick walls and buttresses. Called “Catalan style” or partitioned, as we mentioned, they were used in our country since the 14th century for economy and ease of use and their most appropriate profile was that of the bow with a small arrow.
The Field Fair was, in any case, a laboratory of modern architecture in that quarter of a century in which it survived: Ruiz and Cabrero explored to the maximum the possibilities of brick vaults and the innovative concrete cantilevers – one of the exceptions in the use of that material -, and moved towards the greatest possible flexibility of spaces and the primacy of light.
Given the success of this initiative, it was gradually expanded. We can highlight the incorporation, in 1956, of an assembly hall and a hollow Cube or Dice, as a reception room; or the slightly earlier one, from 1953, of the pavilion of the National Institute of Industry, the work of Esquer and Bellosillo, with a sheet of concrete in segments hanging from steel cables.
Cabrero and Pérez Enciso are in charge of the pavilion of the Obra Sindical del Hogar, which refers to Mies van der Rohe, the constructivist metal trusses and the natural conditioning systems of Spanish-Muslim architecture.
We must not miss the 1/1000 scale model of the 115 pavilions and other constructions, located in their original topography, which have been reconstituted after De Coca’s research, nor the general plan with the diachronic representation of the plants. Furthermore, the Spanish Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels Universal Exhibition, moved to Madrid the following year and the work of Corrales y Molezún, has been reproduced in a large model: it was an example of organizational clarity and communion of interiors and exteriors.
In 1965 the Crystal Pavilion, designed by Cabrero y Ruiz together with Luis Labiano, transformed the façade of the venue. It incorporates multiple allusions to past architecture, from the foundations to the hypostyle rooms and cisterns, and will share inspiration with later pavilions from different provinces.
One of the most visited was the one in the Canary Islands, carried out by Secundino Zuazo, a member of the so-called generation of ’25 and teacher of Cabrero, Fisac and De la Sota. It was based on both the Roman house and popular architecture and was U-shaped, with a viewing tower and stepped pergolas.
Clear popular roots were also offered by the buildings that no longer exist in Ciudad Real, Pontevedra and Jaén. Along with this questioned typism, the durability of the constructions was the subject of debate: Luis Moya preferred the pavilions to be ephemeral; Cabrero and Ruiz opted for durability, for economic reasons; and Alejandro de la Sota, in any case, defended novelty against the repetition of models and regional evocation.
The preserved pavilions and landscape layouts, still living fusions of the contemporary and the popular, have been declared a Site of Cultural Interest as a Historical Site in 2010 (four years after the approval of the Special Field Fair Plan), but the truth is that their current uses do not respond to their multiple possibilities, perhaps artistic and cultural, perhaps linked to the promotion of the rural environment or sustainable tourism. The options are open.
“The Country Fairs. Landscapes and modern architecture in the Casa de Campo”
ICO MUSEUM
C/ Zorrilla, 3
Madrid
From October 14, 2025 to January 11, 2026
