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- Title
Los estándares como instrumentos políticos: ciencia y Estado franquista a finales de los años cincuenta.
- Authors
CAMPRUBI, LINO
- Abstract
In this article, I explore the history of a failed attempt at standardization of prestressed concrete joists (small beams) at the end of the 1950s in Spain: Punto Azul (Blue Point). Punto Azul was a means of developing and spreading performance standards for mass-produced structural components. The project, championed by the Instituto Técnico de la Construcción y del Cemento (Technical Institute for Construction and Cement) and his director Eduardo Torroja, of international reputation as a structural engineer, tried to gather the state and private business around construction experts. However, the project aroused opposition that, after heated controversy, led to its termination. This paper will follow the Punto Azul story in order to unveil the intermingling of science, technology and political economy in a time of changes within the Francoist regime. Thus, I will show that Punto Azul conveyed a whole program of industrialization of construction that included the development of 'the sciences of construction', a growing technological integration with other European countries and a project of control and regulation of Spain's private industry.
- Subjects
SPAIN; BUILDING material standards; SPANISH history, 1939-1975; BUILDING materials industry; CONCRETE construction industry; SELF-regulation in construction industries; PRESTRESSED concrete beams; GOVERNMENT policy; HISTORIOGRAPHY
- Publication
EMPIRIA: Revista de Metodología de Ciencias Sociales, 2009, Vol 18, p85
- ISSN
1139-5737
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5944/empiria.18.2009.2001