Barraca (housing)

The barraca is a typical building from the orchard of Valencia (Valencian Community) and the Region of Murcia. It served as housing for farmers, which is why it is located in irrigated orchard areas. There are examples of barracks in the central coastal area of the Valencian Community (approximately coinciding with the current coastal area of the province of Valencia) although it is much more common in the regions surrounding the Valencia lagoon (Huerta de Valencia, la Ribera Alta and the Ribera Baja), although with the gradual loss of importance of the agricultural sector in the Valencian economy its use has decreased considerably. Another area where the hut is a traditional habitat and of which some examples remain is the Alicante region of Vega Baja del Segura.

Due to the geographical proximity to the Region of Murcia, the concept of barraca also exists. In the Vega Media del Segura, as it passed through Murcia, there was also fruitful agriculture, and the known home in the orchard was the hut. Nowadays it has disappeared, it is alluded to in the Bando de la Huerta festival.

There are two main types, the garden hut and the fishermen's hut. However, this last type is almost disappeared, with only a few specimens existing in the lagoon area, where it is interspersed with the orchard hut because said area combines both characteristics.

The building has a rectangular floor plan, about nine by five meters, with a triangular roof with a marked angle to drain the torrential rainfall so typical of said area, with a ridge perpendicular to the entrance (usually facing south) which is located on one of the smaller sides. The distribution is always similar: a door on the south façade that gives access to a wide hallway that runs through the entire building to the north façade, where another door is enabled that allows air circulation. This hallway is used as a kitchen, dining room and storage room. In the other bay the bedrooms are set up, usually three. The upper floor is accessed by a ladder and was formerly used for silkworm breeding.

For its construction, materials that are easily accessible in the area are used, such as mud, reeds, reeds or reeds. For this reason, the walls are built with adobe bricks and the roof is made with reed and straw.

The origin of this type of building is difficult to ascertain, despite this, there are experts, such as W.Giese and Max Thede, who consider that they could be related to archaic circular constructions that little by little evolve into rectangular structures, which which could explain why the back parts of barracks in some areas have a circular wall, the butt (as occurs in the Ebro lands, or in the French area of the Camargue, where they also still preserve the central pillar that served to support the covered, or even in some barracks in El Palmar in Valencia)

The Valencian hut has traditionally been richer than the Oriolan hut due to differences in land ownership: while in the Huerta de Valencia the farmer was the owner of the orchard he cultivated, in the Vega Baja he normally He was a tenant since the lands belonged to the clergy or the aristocracy of Orihuela.

Gallery

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  Barraca valenciana.

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  Barracas de la Albufera.

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  Barracas in the Pechinar acequia, in Valencia.

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  Beniparrell Barracas before the Great Laugh of Valencia of 1957