Walking through the Reina Victoria neighborhood, located in the urban center of Huelva, is not only to recognize a set of whitewashed houses with more or less decorative details of English evocation that merge with those of Islamic appearance. Walking through these streets seems more like the rediscovery of a space of the nineteenth century, of a time when the history of Huelva was industrial, mining and British.
Here, in what is now the center of the city, the Rio Tinto Company Limited conceived a neighborhood that offered housing for its workers. At present, the neighborhood – declared a Historic Site – has a varied aesthetic appearance, the result of different phases and the various extensions made to the original project of Gonzalo Aguado and Perez Carasa in 1916.
The original project imagined the layout of the neighborhood as an idealized garden city: nine parallel streets and two orthogonal to them, with gardens at their intersections and a large public square. The pedestrian entrance from the outside was carried out through gates from which staircases started, with lateral ramps appearing in the intermediate sections. The perimeter of the neighborhood had a ring road for vehicles, leaving the interior for pedestrian use.
In 1916 the project of the municipal architects consisted of 71 equal and independent buildings of T-shaped plants, of a single height composed of kitchen-dining room, 3-2 bedrooms and toilets. The rest of the plot was destined to green areas. The houses had gabled roofs with wooden trusses and false ceilings of reeds and plaster. El enfoscado y cal era el recubrimiento dado a la fachada.The rendering and lime was the coating given to the facade.
Between 1923 and 1926 a different model of two-story houses was built, each block containing four dwellings. The main facades had wooden lattice gables and gable roofs.
For the people of Huelva, the history of another century seems already distant, but here, in the popularly called “Barrio Obrero”, it is remembered walking among British style houses, mining companies, English exploitations, and working population that meet in these streets where the past city is uniquely appropriated from the present city.
In 1918 Morgan began his work in the neighborhood reforming the floor plan of the buildings leaving three equal houses.
Barrio Reina Victoria is located between the Avenida Alcalde Federico Molina, Avenida de Guatemala and Calle Roque Barcia.
Walking is recommended at any time of the day.
