Spain’s Education and Recreation Resorts: A Forgotten Chapter in Public Holiday Housing
When people picture a Spanish seaside getaway, the Marina d’Or complex in Oropesa del Mar (Castellón) often comes to mind, recently acquired by Magic Costa Blanca. Yet the story behind these so‑called Education and Recreation Resorts, or Holiday Union Cities, is broader. Three major projects—Perlora in Asturias, Tarragona, and Marbella—were conceived as worker housing schemes under public enterprises during the mid‑20th century. Sixty years later, these communities have followed markedly different trajectories—from near abandonment to thoughtful revitalization aimed at modern use.
These resorts were not simply about leisure. They embodied a social tourism plan that, in its early days, linked affordable transport with inexpensive holiday housing and eventually with the construction of distinct resort towns. The concept did not originate with Franco; fascist Italy built “sea colonies” in the 1930s to provide workers with access to coastal retreats, a model later copied by Germany. This approach appeared in Spain through the efforts of José Solís Ruiz, then a key official in the National Movement. Following rapid industrialization between 1951 and 1957, a wave of workers and new migrants swelled the need for such affordable escapes. The idea was to export applied social policy into the realm of leisure, aligning housing with transport and collective amenity provisions.
Antonio, a scholar of the era, notes that the Obra Sindical de Educación y Descanso (OSED) emerged to design what was described as a social tourism program. It began with transport and low‑cost lodging for workers and evolved into a broader project: the creation of resort cities. The three complexes—Costa Dorada, Costa del Sol, and Costa Verde Cantábrica in Perlora—were laid out so that each location was roughly equidistant from the peninsula’s main coast, reducing travel costs for families. Public enterprises like Ensidesa, savings banks, Hunosa, and hydrographic confederations distributed the homes according to family needs in short vacation windows. Dining facilities offered discounts to large families, adding a social layer to the housing plan.
The architecture of each site reflected its regional character. Tarragona, now known as Ciutat de Repòs, housed about 1,200 guests every fortnight in 200 small bungalows, with communal amenities such as a dining hall, a laundromat, a church, and a sports field to support daily life and religious practice during summer months. In Asturias, the Somolinos brothers designed a complex of 273 chalets, some drawing inspiration from traditional horreos, alongside a shared space that included a bar, a nursery, and even a theatre. Marbella’s plan favored lime tones and rounded forms that integrated with the terrain, with a spiraling church as its signature structure, leaving much of the interior open to the sky.
As the public holiday model rose in prominence, new tourism boom resulted in waves of development along Spain’s coast. Foreign visitors flocked to sun and sand, fueling a real estate surge that reshaped the coastline. The intended social housing model began to fray as privatized lodging grew more prominent, and many of the early vacation homes fell into neglect due to changing economic realities and rising private options.
Twopaths of decline and a single path of partial renewal
Tarragona’s complex was the first to be forgotten. Deterioration escalated after the dictatorship, culminating in the demolition of all apartments in 1993. The site has remained closed since 2011, with renewed discussions in recent years about its future. In 2022, plans emerged to convert the area into a youth hostel network in Catalonia, aligning with regional urban renewal strategies and backed by a multiyear investment plan.
In Asturias, the residential hub faced a different fate: the hotel building was demolished in 2006 after alumina was detected, and the complex has stayed shuttered since. Green spaces require ongoing maintenance, while authorities continue to patrol against unauthorized occupancy, a duty that costs the regional government substantial funds each year. Community groups have persistently pressed for an alternative strategy that can honor the site’s history while delivering productive reuse.
Marbella represents the lone exception among the trio. It has managed to keep functioning within the broader Leisure Housing network under regional administration. Academic observers have noted that the Marbella complex continues to provide affordable accommodation to workers through a public lottery system, maintaining a link to its original social purpose even as the landscape around it has shifted toward private resort development.
A question for the present: could the model work again?
Some observers propose that settlement cities may inform more sustainable approaches to coastal tourism, especially as Southern European countries grapple with overcrowding. The core idea remains: a public framework could offer a managed, leisure‑rights–oriented approach that minimizes real estate speculation and prioritizes access. Yet most experts agree that simply copying the old formula is not feasible. The market today is dominated by private operators and massive promotional campaigns, and the old model arose in a very specific historical moment when the coast was largely undeveloped and the state played a direct role in housing workers for leisure. As Ricardo Carcelén, a professor at Cartagena Polytechnic University, observes, the Marbella example shows how public housing for workers can still function within a modern administrative system, but replicating the original social model is impractical in today’s market conditions.
In short, the Education and Recreation groups emerged from a unique set of circumstances where a relatively pristine coast paired with state oversight allowed for a distinct form of social housing for leisure. They demonstrated a different way to imagine coastal access—one that prioritized collective amenities and affordable stays over privatized luxury. While some sites have found ways to continue serving the public good, others serve as stark reminders of what happens when policy, economy, and tourism collide and diverge. This is not a blueprint for contemporary vacationing but a historical lens on how public solidarity can shape space, community, and memory along the Spanish coast, with lessons that still resonate today (Source: historical archival records and regional planning documents).