San Sebastián removes 13 Franco-era plaques from private buildings

San Sebastián removes 13 Francoist plaques, leaving six remaining

How many plaques antiestéticaturing the yoke and arrows are still hanging on the facades of private homes in San Sebastián? Not thirteen anymore. The City Council, through the Human Rights department led by Iñigo García, has removed 13 of the 19 identified since 2013, according to the count accompanying the update of the Catalogue of Francoist Symbolism in Donostia's Private Buildings. The remaining ones are no mystery: three are still in Amara, Gros, and El Antiguo, and three more have been reported in recent months—two in Bidebieta and one in Amara. The plan is moving forward through individual files and ten years of administrative work.

The identified properties are blocks from the 40s and 50s, with one case from the 60s, spread across Amara, El Antiguo, Altza, Egia, Intxaurrondo, Centro, and Gros. Most antiestéticature the yoke and arrows icon alongside the initials INV, belonging to the Instituto Nacional de la Vivienda (National Housing Institute). In other words, the mark is not on a barracks or a political headquarters, but on the wall of a building where people live today who never asked to share their facade with the dictatorship.

What the INV was and why its trace remains on facades

The Instituto Nacional de la Vivienda was the agency that managed the construction of social housing during the Franco regime. This is why its logo appears on entire housing developments from those years. The removal of the plaques is supported by the Ley de Memoria Democrática (Law of Democratic Memory), which mandates the removal of elements exalting the dictatorship in public spaces, including private ones when they are visible from the street.

The procedure is not instantaneous. Identification, notification to the homeowners' association, authorization, and execution. Of the 16 cataloged plaques, 13 have already been removed. The remaining three are being processed, and the three newly reported ones add more work to a list that seemed closed.

The recurring argument: "Franco built social housing"

This is where the matter shifts from a heritage issue to a battle over historical narrative. Part of the analysis argues that INV blocks were affordable housing built in bulk for workers, and that removing the plaque is a way of disrespecting those who accessed an apartment in a Spain with almost no public rental stock. It is argued that most buildings in many Spanish cities were built during that era and that their first tenants paid installments or even the property in full.

The counter-argument is equally direct: that a regime built housing does not make it a benefactor, just as the existence of reservoirs or the Social Security system does not erase repression. Some summarize it with a phrase circulating in the debate: if the problem is the memory, removing a fifteen-centimeter plaque does not erase history; the building remains.

The financial impact: plaques and renovation subsidies

The debate heats up when money is involved. In the Valencian Community, according to available data, buildings with Francoist elements will not be eligible for renovation grants: either the plaque is removed or the subsidy is lost. The measure is supported by the regional law of democratic memory approved by Les Corts (the Valencian Parliament).

There, the symbol ceases to be a symbol and becomes a budget item. For a homeowners' association with a facade needing repair, the decision is not ideological: it is arithmetic. And that is, probably, the lever that moves files the fastest.

"Tear them all down": the paradox of those calling for demolition

Irony runs through the entire issue. Some sarcastically argue that removing the plaque is not enough and that the coherent thing would be to demolish the entire buildings, with the residents included in the equation. The joke serves to point out the contradiction: INV blocks are now in established areas and are worth a fortune, making it uncomfortable to present them as a burden to be discarded.

A full calculation of what that idea would cost, broken down block by block, yields a result that dismantles the joke in two lines. One only needs to look at the price per square meter in any of those neighborhoods.

Old rent agreements and the lack of new housing

At the heart of the debate lies another, more material discussion: the housing that exists and the housing that is not being built. It is noted that there were tenants with old rent agreements in central San Sebastián paying ridiculous amounts per month in the early 2000s, and this is compared to current access, where a person's salary can no longer buy what it could decades ago.

The conclusion that is repeated is uncomfortable for everyone: in thirty years, there will still be people living in those apartments, with or without a plaque, because the affordable housing stock is not being replenished at the same rate that symbolism is being removed.

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In the end, the City Council will have complied with the law, the facades will be cleaner, and the housing problem will remain exactly where it was. That is, with thirteen fewer plaques to blame.