A collection of old photographs showing the progress of the construction works from 1948 onwards, taken from the old archives held at the university.

Photographs from 1948 to 1955 showing the evolution of the various phases in the development of the Universidad Laboral de Gijón as it rose. They are not in chronological order, since the aim is to show photographs, most of them unpublished, that reveal the traditional craft bricklaying followed in the construction, which could hardly be achieved today with the building system used at the Universidad Laboral, owing to the loss of traditional crafts.

The construction of the agronomic farm

This was the first project undertaken, from June 1946, by the architect Pedro R. de la Puente and the agricultural engineer Ignacio Chacón within what was called the Orfanato Minero, which would later be converted into the Universidad Laboral de Gijón. The ultimate aims pursued in creating this farm were, on the one hand, to feed the students who were to live within the architectural complex and, on the other, to have the future students learn agricultural techniques .

Photographs of the so-called zymothermic chambers, whose purpose was to recycle all the organic waste from the stables and pigsties in order to obtain agricultural fertilisers from it through controlled fermentation, of great value for the operation of the farm itself.

Various details of the traditional craft bricklaying applied in the construction of the farm, which could hardly be repeated today

General view of the stables, which follow the so-called North American model, then the best pattern to follow in terms of the efficiency of the facility; the large forage and beet silos are particularly noteworthy.

General view with the farm practically finished

General view with the farm under construction, but with the front buildings, annexed to what was to be the planned pig unit, nearly completed

The works on the Tower

A chronological series of the tower rising from its origins. As it stands on poor-quality ground, the initial studies recommended a foundation of piles 630 mm in diameter at an average depth of 9 metres, topped by a square concrete slab 19 metres per side and 1.5 metres thick, weighing 1,000 tonnes.

Various photographs of the slab and the initial rise of the tower

Original piling plan for the foundations

Once the piles were in place

Machinery used to bore the holes for the piles

Rising from the level of the slab towards the level of the courtyard, which lies at 40.6 metres above sea level

At courtyard level, before work began on raising the church

The tower rising and construction of the church beginning in 1950/51

Construction detail of the wall faces of the Tower.

The works on the Church

A sequential series of photographs of the construction of the church

Construction details of the stone-block cladding of the church walls

Photographs of the front part of the auditorium facing the central courtyard.

The works on the Auditorium (Salón de Actos).

The photographs we show present the progress of the works on the block containing the complex construction of the auditorium and its roof, as well as its magnificent façade. The interior is fan-shaped and the curved ceiling has the peculiarity of being built entirely of brick, its structure being a sheaf of segmental arches with a 22-metre span, in which the brickwork was left unrendered and subsequently coated with cement mortar and painted in oils, thus achieving the sound absorption and reflection properties calculated for this ceiling, in addition to a flat surface that was later painted in fresco by the Seville-born painter Enrique Segura.

To help the reader understand the photographs of the auditorium roof shown below, we present a magnificent section drawing of the auditorium, on which we have marked with the letters A, B, C, D the positions of the beams seen in the period photographs, with every kind of detail.

The photographs we show reveal the details of the 3 arches, prior to the roofing of the stage ceiling, which we mark on the drawing with the letter ( A ).

Before the 3 arches were built, the crowning of the stage was executed in sandstone on the outside, and the interior of the stage, shallow and very wide, was completed, its back being a great brick vault

Photographs and details of the 18 brick arches, as per detail ( C ) of the initial section drawing, resting at one end on a concrete beam at the proscenium opening ( B ) and at the other on a horizontal beam forming the ceiling of the entire foyer, detail ( D ) of the section drawing.

As the directing architect, Luis Moya, tells us, the structural calculations for the auditorium were carried out by the architect Manuel Thomas, a specialist in the calculation of vaulted brick structures and timbrel vaults (made with layers of solid brick and thin flat bricks, or rasillas); it was Manuel Thomas who was responsible for verifying the flexibility and mechanical strength of these arched systems, which defied the conventional techniques of the time, without the need for large centrings.

The structural architect Luis García Amorena and the engineer Juan Moya Blanco also took part in the calculations for the auditorium.

Views of the supporting beam, detail ( B ) of the drawing, on which the 18 arches bear at the proscenium opening of the theatre stage.

View of the timber centring structure used to build one of the 18 arches of the auditorium

View of the complex scaffolding used to build the 18 arches that make up the auditorium ceiling.

Sloping flat ceiling at the proscenium opening, on which the painter Enrique Segura executed the frontispiece painting shown below

Photograph from 1953 in which the scaffolding from which the painter Enrique Segura executed the frontispiece fresco can still be seen

Construction of the first arch and its abutment against the beam of the proscenium opening, detail ( B )

Detail photographs of the construction showing the brick configuration of the arches of the auditorium

THE GREAT FAÇADE OF THE AUDITORIUM.

The façade of the Aula Magna has a width and height roughly equivalent to those of the Parthenon, and is composed of two orders of columns, Doric below and Corinthian above. According to Luis Moya, he followed the corresponding Greek type, known from two surviving examples: the Market Gate of Miletus and the Library of Ephesus

Start of the works on the façade of the Aula Magna

Progress of the construction of the main façade of the Aula Magna

Various stages in the construction of the main façade of the Aula Magna

The façade under construction and not yet finished, where we can already see the six statues by the sculptor Florentino Trapero, which were later replaced by figures of the same personages, but seated, since the directing architect Luis Moya considered them too slender. They were finally removed in the 1980s and relocated on the columns of the Patronato building and of the Directorate building in the central courtyard.

Rafael Morán Rumoroso

info@universidad-laboral-gijon.es