I love rainy weather and I love rainy places, it's been like that for most of my life. For European standards Asturies is a rainy region, 1000 mms per year in the main cities, above 1500 mms in mountain areas, allegedly 2000 mms in Picos d'Europa (but there are no meteo stations in the right places to measure that). One of the rainiest places in Asturies is on its southwest corner, L.leitariegos and Degaña allegedly should be well around 1700 mms, but in years (like the last one) when rains enter more from the SW than from the NW they can be well above that. From early September 2024 to October 10th there's been a combination of NW, W and SW situations that has left 450 mms in 40 days in Degaña (Zarréu)! Wow, that's massive and the best is that those have been strong but well sustained rains allowing the soil to absorb the water and not causing any sort of destructive floodings. All this being said, in the last year I've got a fascination with that hidden corner of Asturies called Degaña.
I've never set foot there as reaching the place in public transport is very, very complex, so I've done some virtual travel via google. Degaña has a coal mining past that brought it so many jobs and prosperity that are now long gone (as in neighbouring L.laciana (Vil.lablinu) in Llión, and in the other Asturian coal mining basins "cuenques mineres"). Because of that when you take a virtual-look into Zarréu you see one part of the village made up of traditional housing and another parts consisting of housing blocks built in the 60's (I guess) to house all the population growth gifted by the coal mining activities. It's the same kind of housing blocks that you'll find all over Asturies (frequently known as "colomines"), that in the outside look pretty similar to Soviet Krushevkas.
Like those, they were built with a max height of 4 floors, to avoid the need for elevators and save money. The ones that you see in Zarréu range from 2 to 4 floors, and have not seen any sort of restoration, so they look pretty old (but with the charm of a glorious past). To my astonishment, on one side of those blocks a very nice piece of modern architecture pops out. In the past I wrote this post expressing my delighment with some modern public housing buildings that I had just found in Mieres. As I say in that post, for Asturies that kind of construction is absolutely amazing, but it's something that you can find in so many places in France (except Toulouse, of course, the "Architectural redneck capital of Europe"). But this building in Zarréu is amazing in itself, not just in comparison to what is common in Asturies. The combination of modernity (shapes and black facades) and tradition (those slate tiles and those small balconies that are like a reinterpretation of the magnificent Asturian "corredor") is just unparallel here.
After the initial shock I investigated a bit to see how such a beautifully surprise came into existence (read: [1] and [2]). They were completed in 2009, as modern public housing intended for young people and coal miners. At that time there were still coal mines going on, and though the activity was clearly in decline, I think nobody could think at that time that in 10 years the Central Government would have closed them all (in the whole country) and that 2 years later it would close all the coal-fired power stations in the country!!!??? in their stupid plan of "achieving" the fastest energetic transition in the world, with a total despite for all those that will be left behind by this pseudo-ecologic delirium. We are talking of definitive closing, with the coal mines in Degaña and Ibias closing from one day to another, and with coal-fired power stations being dismantled almost immediatelly, so that following the German approach of putting some of them back to work to try to compensate the energy crisis due to the NATO war against Russia were totally impossible... So in retrospect that building was quite probably totally unnecessary (indeed it seems a twin building was also planned, but of course the idea was abandoned), as all that area (Ibias, Degaña, L.laciana...) has suffered a massive population decline, with the few young locals having mainly moved away in their search for survival (finding a job), and I guess that probably quite a few retired coal miners have also moved (like many in Mieres and Llangréu previously did, moving to Uviéu and Xixón)
The masterminds behind this gorgeous construction are the Asturian architect Nacho Ruiz Allén and the Navarrese architect Jose Antonio Ruiz Esquiroz. The've worked together in several other projects, among them this mesmerizing viewpoint also in Asturies: Walkway-Lookout over Rioseco Mines.
Do a google search for images of the place, it's outstanding:
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