The World of the Victors

Personal project

2010-2014

Prompted by concerns raised after reading the novel Mala gente que camina (Bad People Who Walk) by Benjamín Prado, and motivated by the brutality of Franco’s repression, in 2010 I began a project on Francoist archaeology with the aim of photographing the residences of the most prominent figures in the leadership of the various Francoist governments.

 

This objective changed slightly when I learned of the 2008 legal proceedings in which Judge Garzón prosecuted 35 senior officials from the first phase of Franco’s government for crimes against humanity. During these proceedings, the magistrate was forced to request their death certificates in order to declare their responsibilities extinguished. Obtaining copies of these certificates, which contain the last official address of the deceased, allowed me to start the project and, at the same time, limit it to those considered to be the main architects of the repression, represented by figures such as Francisco Franco, Nicolás Franco, Serrano Súñer, Juan Vigón, Queipo de Llano and Tomás Domínguez Arévalo.

 

The location, identification, and registration of houses throughout Spain led me to undertake a project that, through the visible face of the residences of some of the darkest figures of the Civil War and the Dictatorship, symbolically elemental as monuments of self-representation, offers us an unprecedented image of Francoism that takes into account the historical, cultural, and aesthetic imagination of the Francoist elites, their privileges and the impunity they have enjoyed.

  • View of the Palacio del Canto del Pico, Torrelodones (Madrid), one of Francisco Franco Bahamonde's second residences.

  • View from the swimming pool of the south facade of the Palacio del Canto del Pico, Torrelodones (Madrid).

  • Frontal view of the main façade of the Palacio de la Isla, Francisco Franco's residence in Burgos during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).

  • Exit door of Francisco Franco's Pazo de Meirás, in Sada (La Coruña).

  • General view of the Pazo de Meirás, Francisco Franco's house in Sada (La Coruña).

  • Garden and main facade of the Palace of El Pardo, official residence of Francisco Franco, El Pardo (Madrid).

  • Main facade of the Palacio de Cornide, Francisco Franco's residence in the city of A Coruña.

  • Entrance gate to the block of flats where Salvador Moreno Fernández lived, Salamanca district (Madrid).

  • Agustín Muñoz Grandes's house in the Puerta de Hierro development, Madrid.

  • General view of the Cortijo de Gambogaz, the official residence of Gonzalo Queipo de Llano in Camas (Seville).

  • Detail of the Cortijo de Gambogaz, official residence of Gonzalo Queipo de Llano in Camas (Seville).

  • Entrance gate to the official residence of Ramón Serrano Súñer, in the Salamanca district of Madrid.

  • Second residence of Ramón Serrano Súñer, in Gandesa (Tarragona).

  • Main facade of the official residence of José Luis Arrese y Magra, in Corella (Navarre).

  • Side facade of the house of José Luis Arrese y Magra, a former 16th-century palace in Corella, Navarre.

  • Main facade of the block of flats where Nicolás Franco Bahamonde lived, on Princesa Street in Madrid.

  • Official residence of Tomás Domínguez Arévalo, in Villafranca (Navarre).

  • Second residence of Tomás Domínguez Arévalo, in Pamplona.

  • Entrance gate to the estate of Juan Vigón Suero-Díaz, in Caravia (Asturias).

  • House of Juan Vigón Suero-Díaz, in Caravia (Asturias).

  • Official residence of Miguel Ponte y Manso de Zúñiga, in Maó (Menorca).

  • General view of the exhibition El món dels vencedors. Saló de maig, as part of BCN Producció-La Capella 2014, at La Capella in Barcelona.

  • View of the exhibition El món dels vencedors, Saló de tardor, at the Torre de Ses Puntes, Manacor (Mallorca), in 2015.

  • General view of El món dels vencedors, Saló d'estiu, at the Sala Montsuar of the Institut d'Estudis Ilerdencs (Lleida) in 2016.

  • Partial view of the exhibition El món dels vencedors. Salon of Exile, Museu de l'Exili, La Jonquera, 2017.

  • El món dels vencedors, installation which was part of the exhibition Cómo vivir con la memoria, curated by Manuel Olveira at MUSAC in León, 2018.

  • Detail of the installation El món dels vencedors, which was part of the exhibition El Arca, curated by Pia Ogea, at Conde Duque, Madrid, in 2021.