Pedro Muguruza Otaño was a Spanish architect and Falangist politician.
Biography
Born in Madrid on 25 May 1893, his family came from Elgoibar. he earned a degree as architect from the School of Architecture of Madrid in 1916, where he happened to meet other future noted architects such as Secundino Zuazo, Leopoldo Torres Balbás or Luis Gutiérrez Soto. An enthusiast of the practice of sports, he got to play as goalkeeper for Atlético de Madrid. He gained him a reputation as exceptional draughtsman since his spell as student at the School of Architecture. In 1917, soon after graduating, Muguruza started to work as lecturer at the School of Architecture thanks to a proposal by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, and, in March 1920, he finally obtained a Chair of "Projects of Architectural and Ornamental Details". He married Mercedes Peironcely y Puig de la Bellacasa in 1921. They had no issue. Among the projects he authored in the 1920s: the France Station in Barcelona, the Palacio de la Prensa in the Gran Vía, the 40-metre high monument to the sacred Heart of Jesus in Bilbao or the housing project for the Plaza de Rubén Darío. He also led the projects for the restoration of the Monastery of El Paular and the Prado Museum. During the Second Republic he authored some markets, such as Santa María de la Cabezas's or Maravillas. After the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, Muguruza fled from the Republican area and joined the Francoist side. Franco entrusted him the task or reorganizing the architecture in the territory controlled by the rebels. Muguruza assumed as member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1938. In June 1939, only 3 months after the Francoist victory in the war, he presided over the Assembly of architects in Madrid, setting the ideological foundations behind the architecture of the new regime. Already Chief of the Services of Architecture of FET y de las JONS, he was appointed to the leadership of the Directorate General for Architecture, structured along totalitarian lines. Muguruza served in the post from 30 September 1939 to 8 March 1946. Muguruza also was, along his disciple Diego Méndez, one of the two architects who authored the Valle de los Caídos; the aim behind the design was for the site to become an eternal metaphor of the regime's ideology. He directed the building works until his leaving in 1949, reportedly because of a degenerative paralysis; he was replaced by Méndez. He died on 3 February 1952 in Madrid.
