Discussion and professional problematic surrounding iron architecture in the second half of the 19th century: the construction process of the Val market (Valladolid)

Abstract

In 1878 the municipal architect of Valladolid, Joaquín Ruiz Sierra, signed the project for the only nineteenth-century iron market still standing, though much transformed, in Valladolid: the Val market. Its building process was both problematic and interesting from a historical, social, political, constructive and artistic perspective.

We have carried out a detailed study on this specific issue -contextualised and using unpublished documentation- which offers new information on the architectural development in Valladolid during the last quarter of the 19th century and provides a better understanding, on a national level, of a part of our iron architecture from a historical an technical point of view. Various studies have considered the Val market to be one of the most interesting markets of the 19th century in Spain. Thus, this work, based on the confrontation between architects, political power and a society whose public opinion was managed by the press, studies the defence of the creative individuality of an architectural work.