Opening borders. Spanish design in MD Moebel Interior Design (1961–1970)

In the late 1930s, Spain suffered a civil war that led to the establishment of a dictatorship until 1975. In 1959, after the first stage of isolation from other Western powers, the country began the second period of openness to the outside world. In this context, Spain began to participate in several international exhibitions. At the same time, in the 1950s, great personalities such as Sartoris, Zevi, and Ponti visited the country, providing Spanish architects of the time with a breath of fresh air. This international contact and an atmosphere of openness led to the consolidation of design as a discipline through two organizations, SEDI (Sociedad de Estudios para Diseño Industrial [Society of Industrial Design Studies]) and IBID (Institut de Disseny Industrial de Barcelona [Barcelona Institute of Industrial Design]), created in 1957. This institution created the Delta Awards, in 1961, which recognized, throughout its duration, many icons of Spanish design. That same year Catalan architects Bohigas and Martorell began an interesting collaboration with the German magazine Moebel Interior Design. Martorell, Bohigas, and Mackay, the latter joining in 1963, were the magazine’s Spanish correspondents until 1970. During this period they published around thirty reports showing Spanish achievements in the field of design. This paper sets out to analyse this episode, exploring the events that led to it, as well as the clues to understand the magazine’s interest in Spanish design and the image that it projected abroad, as a sign of the opening up of both, the country and the discipline.