ENDASA Village

Industry

ENDASA Village

Laviana, Gozón

919605133

ENDASA

1051164784

ENDASA Village

Industry
Residential Sites

In the late 1950s, Empresa Nacional del Aluminio, ENDASA, set up on the right bank of the Avilés estuary. Its workers, just like other state-owned companies promoted by Instituto Nacional de Industria (National Institute of Industry), in particular ENSIDESA, had access to a series of services and social equipment that included welfare, health and pharmaceutical services, training aids, basic product supplies... These facilities included accommodation for employees and their families. To this end, ENDASA promoted a company settlement.

The ENDASA settlement, also known as the San Balandrán settlement, and more popularly as "El pobladín", is located in Laviana, in the municipality of Gozón. It stands on a plot of land of around 90,000 square metres near the industrial area. Its construction began in 1958, following the project of Juan Manuel Cárdenas Rodríguez, one of the modern architects who worked with the greatest dedication for ENSIDESA. Together with Francisco Goicoechea Agustí, he was in charge of the failed thermal power station and the urban layout of the town of Llaranes, among other designs.

The ENDASA settlement comprises a total of sixty dwellings, grouped in blocks of flats, which are aligned to adapt to the unevenness of the terrain. They have a rectangular ground plan, they are arranged in three storeys, and the blocks of flats have a regular façade design: reinforced concrete foundations, fair-faced brickwork walls over stone veneering plinths, high and cantilevered balconies with concrete sills on the front. The addition of recesses and protrusions discreetly enlivens the building's composition. The rental accommodation has a floor area of eighty-five square metres and is divided into an entrance hall, a kitchen, a living room, four bedrooms and toilets.

Currently, a large part of the dwellings are uninhabited and the state of conservation of the complex is clearly very poor.

Natalia Tielve García

PHOTO GALLERY