Industrial Engineering in Spain in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: From Renewal to Crisis

摘要

In Spain, industrial engineering came of age in the first decades of the twentieth century. Its contribution to the modernization of the country was recognized by Spanish society. In 1900, a project to expand industrial engineering incorporating apprenticeship and higher engineering was promoted by several associations and local governments. This project materialized in the Industrial School of Barcelona (1904), and received considerable support from the Catalanist movement. However, the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-30) attempted to reform the Industrial School, suppressing all the initiatives associated with Catalanism. During this period, the installation of the Higher School of Industrial Engineering in the Industrial School was completed. The project was accomplished but had abandoned its democratic spirit. This situation remained unchanged during the Second Republic and the Franco dictatorship. The proclamation of the Second Republic in 1931 offered new opportunities. Industrial engineers sought to renew technical education and volunteered to help modernize the country. The attitudes of the Barcelona Association of Industrial Engineers reflect a renewed optimism about the situation. At the same time, industrial engineers played an important part in calling for economic planning based on science. However, this process was interrupted by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (July 1936), which led to the cessation of many projects, some of which were resumed several decades later. In the 1950s a new generation of graduates emerged from the changes produced in the country. Abandoning the autarchy of the post-war period, the modernization of the economy under the Franco dictatorship benefited from the work of the engineers.