With this publication,
Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño aim to make known the stories of the settlers and their descendants, closely associated with the villages they inhabited and which they proudly defend today as their own.
The National Colonisation Institute's programme stimulated Spain's post-war economy by creating new irrigation systems. To this end, dams and canals were built that brought water to three hundred new villages inhabited by settlers, migrants in their own country.
After more than five decades, this book
Habitar el agua visits and documents the actions of the INC, which programmatically and comprehensively transformed the landscape of the Spanish territory, as well as the lives of its protagonists, the settlers, who have been forgotten.
Habitar el agua is a book of an informative nature, and is divided into thematic blocks:
-Socio-political context, water policy and the INC.
-Propaganda, photography and architecture
-The settlers
-Populations and maps
The book combines photographs and texts by prominent authors with trajectories related to the subject matter of the book by the authors,
Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño:
-La fruición de los ojos (The Fruition of the Eyes), by the architect and photographer Iñaki Bergera.
-Momentos Kindel (Kindel Moments), by the journalist Nativel Preciado.
- La arquitectura del NO-DO (The NO-DO architecture), by the writer Julio Lllamazares.
-De los colores invisibles (Of the invisible colours), by Jesús Marina and Elena Morón, historian and architect.
-Los ojos, el deseo y la memoria (The eyes, desire and memory), by Bea S. González Jiménez, architect, photographer and cultural manager.
-Una aproximación al patrimonio documental fotográfico y cinematográfico del Ministerio de Agricultura relacionado con la colonización (An approach to the photographic and cinematographic documentary heritage of the Ministry of Agriculture related to colonisation), by Juan Manuel García Bartolomé, PhD in Political Science and Sociology, in charge of editorial and documentary management in the central services of the Ministry of Agriculture.
-El río (The river), by the writer Ana María Matute, writer (1925-2014).
-Las obras hidráulicas y el riego en los poblados de colonización (Water works and irrigation in the colonisation settlements), by Carlos Nárdiz Ortiz, civil engineer.
-El abastecimiento del agua en los pueblos de colonización. Obra material y memoria colectiva (Water supply in the villages of colonisation. Material work and collective memory), by Esther Abujeta Martín, PhD in Art History and researcher of the colonisation villages.
-La política de colonización agraria en el contexto de la posguerra española (The policy of agrarian colonization in the context of the Spanish postwar period, by Cristóbal Gómez Benito), graduate in philosophy and literature and sociologist specialising in rural sociology research areas.
-La mirada sensible. José Luis Fernández del Amo (The sensitive gaze. José Luis Fernández del Amo), architect of the INC, by the architect Ángel Cordero.
-Los pueblos de colonización de José Luis Fernández del Amo (The colonisation villages of José Luis Fernández del Amo), by Rafael Fernández del Amo, architect and son of the architect and author of several of the colonisation villages.
-Espectáculo a vista de pájaro. La arquitectura experimental de los poblados de colonización (Bird's eye view show. The experimental architecture of colonisation villages ), by architect Silvia Blanco Agüera.
-Dos pueblos del blanco de España. El Priorato y Cerralba (Two white villages in Spain. El Priorato and Cerralba), by Antonio Frenández Alba, architect and author of the two colonisation villages he talks about.
-Una visión personal. Setefilla y Sacramento (A personal vision. Setefilla and Sacramento), by Fernando de Terán, architect, professor at the Escuela de Caminos and author of the two settlements he discusses.
-El arte en las iglesias de los pueblos de colonización (Art in the churches of the colonisation villages), by Miguel Centellas Soler, architect and researcher of the colonisation villages for decades.
-Colonos de la vida (Colonists of life) by photographer Sofía Moro.
-Mujer arrodillada con fondo moderno (Kneeling woman with a modern background), by María Ángeles Durán, professor of sociology and collaborator with UN Women.
-Pueblos de tierra (People of the Earth), by Pablo Rabasco Pozuelo, professor of Art History.
Habitar el agua has been promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and published by the Turner publishing house.
