Discovering Azuqueca de Henares’ Industrial Past: The Pando Archive in the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain

It is preserved in the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain

Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain, MCD

Probably the name of Juan Pando Barrero do not say anything to the azudenses. However, this Madrid photographer, born in 1915 and died in 1992, should occupy a preferential place in his history. And it is that fWas the author of a series of images that document the first steps of the Duralex factory (Stained glass windows of Castilla-Vicasa), whose inauguration will be 60 years old next September.

Pando too immortalized the construction of another large company in the town, Tudoras well as the consequent architectural transformation that these first industrial steps gave rise to.

He Archivo Pando is an extensive catalog of 125,000 negatives that collects the work of a lifetime of this Madrid photographer. Almost 70 of those photographs are directly related to Azuqueca de Henares. Thus, we can see up to seven images of the extension of the Duralex warehouses, both of the concrete and metallic structures. They are dated April 1, 1965. There are also photographs of the exterior of the factory, with the iconic three chimneys that, for years, were the image and symbol of Azuqueca.

The Archive also collects images of the machinery used within the factory and one more of what, perhaps, were one of the first consignments of bottles leaving the factory, on October 21, 1963.

Pando also captured, at the time, photographs of the interior of “Mineral Fibers”, which was initially called “La Esperanza” and, finally, ended up being called “Isover”. It was inaugurated on October 8, 1963, at the same time as the “Stained glass windows of Castilla”. The construction of the Tudor ship (current Exide) is another of the jewels of the collection. In them you can directly see the workers in the middle of the work process. These images are dated June 14, 1965.

Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain, MCD

The collection of 67 photographs of the “Pando Archive” referring to Azuqueca includes 15 images of the Palau Cerámicas factory. However, what the author may not have known is that this factory is located in the municipality of Chiloeches.

new neighborhoods
But perhaps what is most valuable is the mark that these industrial transformations began to leave in the urban landscape of Azuqueca. Traces that today, almost 60 years later, can still be traced. And it is that the factories involved the arrival of a multitude of people, both managers and technicians and, above all, workers. All of them, with their corresponding families. Azuqueca began to significantly increase its number of inhabitants. Therefore, houses were needed.

Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain, MCD

Thus, they were built a series of blocks next to the Villanueva highway, around the current Plaza de los Girasoles. Juan Pando documents it with a series of photographs which are entitled “Housing of the workers in Azuqueca (four-storey apartment block with balcony to the outside”.

There are a total of eight images dating from the end of September 1963. They summarize a period in Spanish history, industrial developmentalism. Blocks built in the middle of the countryside that today are part of the urban fabric of Azudense. In one of them you can see the interior of a commercial establishment full of products. Perhaps this is where the nickname came from, with which, for many years, the area was known, the neighborhood of “El Economato”.

Finally, this series of photographs also includes images of the chalets of the factory technicians, some small houses with a patio, in front of the factory, on the other side of the railway line, in what is today Avenida del Vidrio. You can also see those for managers, in what is today the Parque de la Constitución and the Center for Specialties.

In total there are 67 photographs that summarize an important part of the history of Azuqueca. We owe them, we said at the beginning, to Juan Pando Barrero, a photographer who participated in the Civil War at a very young age. After the war he devoted himself to ethnography and, above all, to architectural and industrial subjects.

Thus, from 1940 to 1992 he carried out commissions for different museums, galleries and industries. His work, integrated in the Pando Archive, is one of the most voluminous graphic testimonies of our country and constitutes a benchmark for industry, public works, monument lighting and advertising images. A part of his enormous work reflected the birth of another Azuqueca. It was a small, very small series of his work, but for Azuqueca, its significance is great. They are preserved, digitized and like gold on cloth, in the Photo Library of the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain. They can be consulted, along with the rest of the Archive, at the this link .

Photographs: Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain, MCD