La historia de la Escuela de Artediez

The postwar years

The war delayed any possible evolution of the schools towards a modernization of their buildings and their teaching methods. During the following decades they would be forgotten, as they were set aside of the transcendental social changes that would occur in the second half of the century.

Nevertheless, after the war, teaching activities continued and increased the number of students. The annual reports and presentations show intense activity of students and teachers, tending to the development of traditional styles and forms but little open to European trends of his time. The isolation suffered by the country during the first decades of Francoism aggravated this trend already pointed out before the war.

Franco wanted to impose a closed economic system of autarchic character, which would lead the country into the greatest isolation in recent centuries and a major economic crisis. Not to forget that until the fifties, Spain did not recover the living standards of 1931. It was at the end of this decade when the economic stabilization plan of 1959 was a turnaround in the economy and the social life that would necessarily affect the entire education system.

With growing industrialization, the then Ministry of Education promulgated in 1963 the Decree 2127 of July 24th, on regulation of schools of Applied Arts and Crafts, creating new specialties. Such independent studies “Decoration”, “Advertising Art”, “Design”, “Delineation and Artistic Trace”, “Book Art” and “Workshops of Applied Arts and Crafts ” appeared; this ruling would then be definitely developed with the Decree of December 27th, 1963. This comes to mean the attempt to overcome the traditionalist orientation enveloping this sector to take its place by what was demanded at that time: the training of men and women not only able to execute, but also to conceive, design and promote artistic development in new professional fields.

Students who attended then the Applied Arts and Crafts schools were still artisan workers trying to perfect their craft, who would balance evening attendance with their day jobs, but also increasing groups attending the morning shift aspiring to a more complete and specialized artistic training. This second group increased until constituting the bulk of these teachings, which could distinguish three types of registration: regular courses of formal education, free education for students only examined in June and in September and specialized classes which became very popular.