Bernardo Giner De Los Ríos
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Bernardo Giner de los Ríos (1888,
Málaga Málaga (; ) is a Municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 591,637 in 2024, it is the second-most populo ...
- 1970) was a Spanish
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
, politician, and writer of architectural books. He built a number of buildings in and around Madrid, including many schools.


Background

The son of Hermenegildo Giner de los Ríos and Laura García Hoppe, Bernardo Giner de los Ríos was born into a family of intellectuals and progressive politicians. His uncle, Francisco Giner de los Ríos, was a
philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
and proponent of the ideas of
Karl Christian Friedrich Krause Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (; 6 May 1781 – 27 September 1832) was a German philosopher whose doctrines became known as Krausism. Krausism, when considered in its totality as a complete, stand-alone philosophical system, had only a small ...
. Francisco Giner de los Ríos translated selections from Krause's aesthetic writings in 1874 as ''Compendio de Estética''. Francisco and Hermenegildo Giner de los Ríos also founded the freethinking ''
Institución Libre de Enseñanza The Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE, English: ''Free Teaching Institution'') was a pedagogical experience developed in Spain for more than half a century (1876–1939). It was inspired by the Krausism, Krausist philosophy introduced at the Co ...
'' in 1876.


Career


Architecture

Beginning his career in the 1920s, Bernardo Giner de los Ríos specialised in the construction of schools, serving as a school inspector for the Spanish province of Levante, around
Alicante Alicante (, , ; ; ; officially: ''/'' ) is a city and municipalities of Spain, municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean port. The population ...
, and built many schools in
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
. During the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
, from 1936 to 1939, he served as the Minister of Communications, Transport and Public Works for the Republican government. After the war, he spent a year in Santo Domingo before moving to Mexico in 1940, where he developed an active career. From 1945 to 1960 he served as General Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic in exile. He spent the years 1946-1949 in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
in this role before returning to
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
, where he died in 1970.


Writings

In
Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
in 1952, Giner de los Ríos published ''50 Años de Arquitectura Española (1900-1950)'' ("50 Years of Spanish Architecture"), a history of Spanish architecture in the 20th century that had grown out of a talk that he gave at the ''Ateneo Español de México'' in August 1951. Although he assumed an objective voice and omitted a political discussion of architecture from this book, Giner de los Ríos' point of view is important given his political activity and his family's history with the ''Institución Libre de Enseñanza''. The book adopted a progressive, but technocratic view of modernization and focused on the role of school construction and municipal urban design achievements in Spanish architecture. Open minded about
aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
, Giner de los Ríos himself built schools in the modern ''Madrileño'' compromise style typical of the younger generation of architects, red-brick with strip windows and moldings of simplified section, like many 1930s buildings at the new
University City of Madrid The University City of Madrid (), also called the Campus de Moncloa, is a complex in the Moncloa-Aravaca district of Madrid, Spain, that holds buildings of two universities and several related organizations. The campus was built between 1929 and 1 ...
(Ciudad Universitaria). However, Giner's book for the most part set aside politics and matters of architectural style to focus on technical advances and planning successes. This approach emphasize the continuity of architectural thinking through a period of rapidly changing political regimes and projects. From 1961 to 1970, the ''Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza'' resumed publication (it had stopped in 1936) in Mexico under his direction. Publication resumed in Madrid in 1977, after the ''Institución'' was legalized in Spain.


External links


article in Catalan about his father, Hermengildo Giner de los Ríos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Giner De Los Rios, Bernardo 1888 births 1970 deaths People from Málaga Republican Union (Spain, 1934) politicians Republican Left (Spain) politicians Government ministers of Spain Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Second Spanish Republic Politicians from Andalusia 20th-century Spanish architects Spanish people of the Spanish Civil War (Republican faction) Exiles of the Spanish Civil War in Mexico Exiled Spanish politicians Government ministers during the Second Spanish Republic