Burdened by a meltdown in its overheated real estate market, Spain has been severely affected by the world financial crisis, and its architects are feeling the pinch. The boom in housing construction, fueled over the past decade by low European Union interest rates, was dealt a fatal blow by the crisis this past fall. According to the Madrid College of Architects, a professional association, permits for new construction virtually came to a halt in 2008. Paloma Sabrini, head of the organization, estimates that at a national level, the market will require three years to absorb the existing overstock of one million units. In Barcelona, Carlos Ferrater, an architect who works in both the private and public sectors, reports that “Most developers have come to a full stop. We’ve gone from euphoria to ruin in three months.”
Spain’s investments in infrastructure over the past 30 years have turned the public sector into a major source of commissions and catapulted the country’s architecture into the international limelight. But overspending has stretched local governments to the limit. Ferrater notes, “Municipalities like Madrid and Valencia are heavily indebted, and can’t even handle projects already under way.”
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