When factories looked like cathedrals: the Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo Industrial Enclosure

There are some industrial ruins that are vestiges of a time when factories were designed with more than just functionality in mind.

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An example of this is the old Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo Industrial Enclosure in the northwest of the Spanish province of Córdoba. This enormous industrial complex emerged in the second half of the 19th century to exploit the coal deposits in the Peñarroya-Belmez-Espiel coal basin. Construction of this industrial estate began in 1875 by the Sociedad Hullera y Metalúrgica de Belmez (Belmez Coal and Metallurgical Society), but it was mainly developed from 1881 onwards by a French company: the Sociedad Minera y Metalúrgica de Peñarroya (SMMP).

The industrial complex included a thermal power plant, a sulfuric acid factory, a large central warehouse, a lead smelter, a zinc factory, and a superphosphate factory, among other facilities. These industrial facilities had a railway line opened in 1868, which reached a large railway infrastructure within the Industrial Enclosure, including garages, maintenance workshops, and a large roundabout. It should be noted that most of these facilities have been in ruins since, as their activity ceased in the 1960s, but they still appear beautiful and impressive today, something that can be explained by the fact that these buildings were designed by the office of the French engineer Gustave Eiffel, the creator of the famous and enormous Parisian tower that bears his name.

Yesterday, the always interesting YouTube channel Aventuras Entresierras (which I recommend you subscribe to if you like all things urban exploration) published a video exploring those beautiful ruins (the video is in English, you can activate automatic Spanish subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

You can see some screenshots here that show a small part of the fascinating content of this video. In it, you can see the interior of some of these beautiful buildings.