Vivienda obrera minera en Cartagena-La Unión

Resumen

The mining “boom” experienced during the XIX century in Cartagena caused a great demographic increase. Population that needs new housing moves to there in a desperate search of new incomes. New villages rose such as “El Estrecho de San Gines” and “El Beal”, and the building of new houses in old zones such as La Unión was increased drastically. Negligible houses were built with similar characteristics, always constructed with poor materials due to lower incomes. Even in the case of the poorest miners, dwelling in caves very close to the mine, homes knowing as “casas-cueva”. Meanwhile a rich highborn people, the owners of the mines, built new and luxury houses, influenced by the modernist architecture wave that rules in Europe. A deep investigation through every plane in the municipal archive of La Unión made locate old planes possible, these planes together with searches over the remainders that nowadays are able to find confirms the main features of the houses built during ...