Dossier of Services
During francoism
While Francoism continued, the use of El Poble Espanyol to establish a violently anti-Catalanist, Spanish nationalist discourse was expressed to the maximum degree. During this period, sectors close to the regime tried to use the organic unity of the Spanish State, which the site manages to achieve in the architectural field, to underline the slogan "unity of the Fatherland".
However, in the gestation of this open-air museum there are some aspects that do not fit with this claim that it was an idea of the Dictatorship and, as such, a Spanish nationalist scheme. Among other things, there is the fact that the project had already been designed some time before, and also the fact that the philosophy behind El Poble Espanyol was not a very original invention in that the idea of recreating a country's regional architecture in an exhibition was not a new one. At the end of the 19th century, a neo-Romantic movement appeared in various European countries and in North and South America involving a re-evaluation of regional or vernacular traditions, in particular houses typical of each region. In Spain, perhaps the best example and culmination of this tendency would be this open-air museum.
