Benidorm: A Utopian or Cautionary Tale in the Development of Tourism, Exams of Tourism

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LEARNING FROM BENIDORM

ROBERT BERRY: MA ARCHITECTURE

Contents: 1.Introduction 2.The Birth Of Benidorm 3.From Bull fighters to Bikkins 4.Traits of Utopia 5.The Garden City: Plan General de Ordenación 6.Bendorm and the contemporary city 7.Performing Benidorm: The Hotel 8.The Solaris Pool

9. An Oasis set Within a Hostile Context 10.The Social Construct of the Strip 11.Utopia Achived?
10. Conclusion

Fig:2 Torre Gerona Fig:3 Levante Beach

came a model that all early holiday resorts have been based on. In effect, Benidorm has become a city built for the desires of the holidaymaker. Its urban topology and legibility has grown over the last half a century to suit the desires, luxuries, cultures and home comforts of the holidaymaker. Prior to the arrival of the package holiday, the population of Benidorm numbered only 3,000 and its main economy was tuna fishing. In the early 1950s fish catches began declining and the tuna industry began to fail. Faced with economic unrest in 1956 the town council approved the ‘Plan General de Ordinacion’, employing all the town’s resources into tourism. A mass building programme was planned to accommo- date for a potential influx of visitors. From then onwards a transient population of predominantly British tourists have been religiously migrating en masse to Benidorm, as a result a resort on the scale of a city has materialised. Benidorm has laid claim to more cult attention than any other European holi- day resort and is now a town with more high-rise buildings per- capita than anywhere else in the world. Its success culminated in 1977 when Benidorm entertained 12 million visitors, a figure that has never been bettered. Benidorm once contributed 12% of Spain’s gross national product which meant that the town’s rev- enue was a massive €16,853,000 every day of the year.^4 The city as one finds it in history […] is the point of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a community [...] here in the city the goods of civilization are multiplied and mani- fold; here is where human experience is transformed into viable signs, symbols and patterns of conduct, systems of order. Here is where the issues of civilization are focused: here, too, ritual passes on occasion into the active drama of a fully differentiated and self-conscious society.^5 4 MVRDV :Costa iberica: (Winy Maas 1998) 5 The Lewis Mymford Reader, ed. Donald L. Miller (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), pp. 104-

In the summer of 2013 I embarked on a study trip with these as- sertions in mind. This project will begin by looking into the ideo- logical origins of the city of Benidorm. It will then look to decipher the semantic experience of the city through observations and fieldwork and finally it will explore the question of achieved utopia. The Birth of Benidorm In the mid nineteenth century Benidorm was a small fishing com- munity with a population numbering only six thousand inhabit- ants.^6 In contrast to today the sea was far from viewed as a place of pleasure, its long beaches were a place of work a long way from the sunloungers and bathers of today. The land surround- ing the town was barren, offering no real use aside from small almond and olive plantations. Aside from a few Spanish wealthy ‘veraneos’ enjoying the occasional weekend by the sea Benidorm was known to few. Prior to the birth of modern Benidorm Spain was in the grip of a conservative, Catholic and authoritarian regime run by the then dictator Francisco Franco. The regime sought to ‘rid Spain of the systems and ideologies that had “corrupted” her true identity. Among these democracy, atheism, and, at least in the early years of the regime capitalism—and the liberal market’.^7 Through af- filiations with Mussolini and Hitler during the Second World War Spain had become increasingly isolated from the international community and throughout the 1940s and early 1950s remained largely economically, politically, and culturally isolated from the outside world.^8 As surrounding European countries began rapid modernisation Spain’s economy began to fall into rapid decline. Subsequently for Benidorm the fishing economy it once relied on 6 Benidorm los orígenes de laciudad vertical: (Benidorm City Council Department of Culture: 2006 ) page 17 7 Sebastian, Balfour, “Spain from 1931 to the Present.” Published in Raymond Carr, In Spain: A History. (Oxford University Press: New York: 2000) Page: 8 Helen Eve Graham, Jo Labanyi: Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction: The struggle for Modernity: (Oxford: Oxford university press. 1995) Page 165


Fig:7 Hisotric Benidorm

Fig:8 Levante Beach Fig:9 Beach Culture

domestic social and political structures that occurred as a result of tourism. Since that order was passed Benidorm has come to be seen as a towering symbol of Spain’s tourist boom, receiving large influxes of British and other western European tourists each summer.^14 ’some see the bikini, at least symbolically as a defin- ing moment in recent Spanish history. It marked the beginning of a timid sexual revolution and helped take the Catholicism out of national Catholicism.’^15 This Single act started Spain’s accelera- tion into the modern world. Traits of utopia: Throughout this section I intend to deconstruct the ideas and framework deployed by the founders of Benidorm towards its conception by comparing various ideological urban movements, each similar in image, intent and experience. I will look to ex- plore the resultant experience of Benidorm and illustrate an un- derstanding of its ambition. Benidorm has come to be seen as a model for all mass tourist resorts. I will argue that these ideologies represent the foundation of modern holidaying, mass tourism and the society of leisure. […] all the great urban planners, engineers and architects of the twentieth century set about their tasks by combining an intense imaginary of some alternative world (both physical and social) with a practical concern for engineering and re-engineering ur- ban regional spaces according to radical new designs.^16 Through visiting Benidorm and subsequent field based research it is seemingly clear Benidorm was conceived in the image of an amalgamation of early twentieth century modern movements 14 Giles, Tremlet: Ghosts of Spain (Faber & Faber: London 2012) 15 Giles, Tremlet: Ghosts of Spain (Faber & Faber: London 2012) page 103 16 David Harvey, Spaces of Hope. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) page 164