Una mirada al pasado a través del análisis de las ruinas industriales de Langreo: el caso concreto de los Talleres del Conde

Abstract

One of the symbols of the industrial past of the municipality of Langreo are the so-called Talleres del Conde. Its origin is situated in the late 19th century, when in 1893, the Compañía de Asturias set up as a corporation, promoted by the engineers Count Arnaldo Sizzo Noris and Wenceslao González. Soon afterwards, in 1902, the Compañía de Asturias's rights, were integrated in the Sociedad Metalúrgica Duro Felguera (SMDF), giving rise to metal constructions section. The opening of the line that connected Soto de Rey with Ciaño-Santa Ana, determined the location of the Compañía de Asturias immediate vicinity of that, within La Felguera. Since 1980s, when the workshops were closed, the structure of their buildings have been eroded due to time, as a metaphor of the facts that, in parallel, have been taking place in the political and economic contexts of the industrial restructuring process. Since then, only the boilermaking and finishing workshops have survived to our times, that even if in a dilapidated preservation state, they have become a landscape reference of the municipality of Langreo. The future of the Talleres del Conde has been matter of dispute for a long time. After the failed attempt to construct a hypermarket on that piece of land, Langreo’s city council decided to expropriate those lands from the SMDF, in 2010, in order to rehabilitate the boilermaking workshop structure and to build a fairground and an exhibition centre, however, nowadays the project is stopped