Resumen de The technocrats against "technocracy": motorways and bottlenecks in engineering ideologies
This paper focuses on the rise and partial fall of the Catalan civil engineers and their heterogeneous technological ideals during the II Spanish Republic (1931-1939). The international exhibition of Barcelona, the international economical crisis and the birth of an autonomous government in Catalonia prompted civil engineers to actively participate in economics and politics.
The study of the Catalan engineering ideals and projects will take account of the local analysis on Technocracy which have recently appeared (e.g., France, Greece, USA), in order to complete the international panorama and to understand the continuous articulation between the national and international issues as “sides of the same coin”. Like machines or technical skills, local engineering thought cannot be explained by linear diffusion or “spontaneous generation”; then, it will be necessary to explore specific (socioeconomic, cultural, psychological) contexts.
