The Universidad Laboral in Gijón

On the edge of Gijón, in Asturias, stands a city within the city. The Universidad Laboral, built between 1946 and 1956 by the Franco regime, to designs by the architect Luis Moya Blanco, was meant to house and train the orphans of miners. The result, often described as the largest building in Spain, borrows from the monasteries and palaces of the Spanish Renaissance: colonnaded courtyards, a theatre, an elliptical church crowned by a dome, and a 130-metre tower visible from all over the city. Long a showcase of the regime, it is now a cultural centre open to all.

The series walks around this monumental complex. The tower and the dome rise above trees and modern rooftops; the long façade stretches beyond the car park and the playing field; black and white brings out the heavy skies and the stone. Inside, a courtyard of Corinthian columns under a glass roof, and a colonnade seen from below, give a sense of the scale of the place.

Renamed Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura in 2007, the former university now houses an art centre, a theatre, schools and the studios of the Asturian public broadcaster. These royalty-free photos suit stories about architecture, Spanish heritage or travel in Asturias, and can be downloaded for free on Pexels.